"Now, you pick one of the colored lines and walk it." He hesitates, and relents, "I suppose you can use your hands this time--but if you touch the plate for more than a moment to steady it at any time, you'll feel the thick end of my staff and no mistake." And the thick end is as thick as the pointy end is pointy. It does, indeed, have a knob on the end, although the stone on this staff's club end is amber rather than demonsblood. "No holding onto the plate, and no touching the beach balls at all. If anything falls, or if I hear anything* other than your footsteps, you start over and I take the hat until you've walked once through correctly."
* As, for example, any of the bells glued at regular intervals to the insides of all the beach balls...