artifice vs leg-pull

artifice

noun
  • A trick played out as an ingenious, but artful, ruse. 

  • A strategic maneuver that uses some clever means to avoid detection or capture. 

  • A tactical move to gain advantage. 

  • A crafty but underhanded deception. 

verb
  • To construct by means of skill or specialised art 

leg-pull

noun
  • A joke, fib or tease. 

How often have the words artifice and leg-pull occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )