Chapter IV: Preface (4)

Offer the cards to any one, and let him draw one. You then hold the cards behind your back, and tell him to place his card on the top. Pretend to make a great shuffling, but only turn that card with its back to the others, still keeping it at the top. Then hold up the cards with their faces towards the spectator, and ask him if the bottom card is his. While doing so, you inspect his card at your leisure. He of course denies it, and you begin shuffling again furiously. "Let me do that," he will probably say; so, as you are perfectly acquainted with his card, you let him shuffle as much as he likes, and then, when you get the cards back again, shuffle until his card is at the bottom. Then pass them behind your back, make a ruffling noise with them, and show him his own card at the bottom.

11. THE CARD FOUND UNDER THE HAT.

Have a needle stuck just inside your sleeve. Hand the cards, &c., just as in the preceding trick, and tell the taker to put the card on the top. Take out the needle, and prick a hole nearly through the top _left_-hand corner. Replace the needle, shuffle the cards, or let any one shuffle them. Place the pack on the table, cover them with a hat, and the marked card will be known by a little raised knob on the _right_-hand top corner. Draw out card by card, saying whether it is that card or not, until you come to the marked one, which you throw on the table carelessly, and when you are about taking out another card, stop suddenly, and pretend to find, by some magic process, that it is the chosen card.

12. TO CALL THE CARDS OUT OF THE PACK.

Tell the spectators that you will call six cards out of the pack. Secure a card, say the ace of spades, in the palm of your hand. Throw the pack on the table, face downwards, spread out the cards, give one of the spectators your conjuring wand, and tell him, when you name a card to touch one, which you will take up.

First name the ace of spades. He touches a card, which you take up without showing the face of it. This card may be, say the eight of diamonds. Put it into your left hand, and place it upon the ace of spades, which is already there, so that the two look like one card. Then call for the eight of diamonds. Another card is touched, say the queen of clubs. This you put with the others, and, after pretending to calculate, call for the queen of clubs.

Proceed in this manner until six cards have been drawn. Then substitute the last card drawn (which is of course a wrong one) for the ace of spades, and conceal it in the palm of your hand. Then strew the others on the table, and while the eyes of the spectators are fixed upon them, get rid of the card in your left hand.

It is a good plan to ask some one to write down the names of the cards as they are called, and then to have the list called over, in order that every one may see that there has been no mistake.

13. HEADS AND TAILS.

While you are shuffling the cards, contrive to arrange quietly all their heads one way, or as many as possible, rejecting all the diamonds except the king, queen, knave, and seven, and passing them to the bottom. Put the pack upon the table, take off a number of the upper cards, and offer them for some one to choose a card from. While he is looking at it, turn the cards round, and offer them to him, in order that he may replace it. Shuffle the cards, and on looking them over, the chosen card will be standing with its head one way, while the others are reversed.

14. THE SURPRISE.

When you have discovered a card, the following plan will make a _striking_ termination to the trick. Get the card to the bottom of the pack, and tell one of the spectators to hold the cards by one corner as tightly as he can. Give them a sharp rap with your finger, not with your hand, and all the cards will be struck out of his hold, and fall on the floor, except the bottom card, which will remain between his finger and thumb. It has a rather more dashing effect, if you put the chosen card at the top, and strike them upwards, when the whole pack will fly about the room, like a flock of butterflies, only leaving the top card in the person's grasp.

15. THE REVOLUTION.

Another neat way of finishing a trick is as follows. Get the card to the top of the pack; and taking care that all the cards are even, drop the pack on the floor, taking care just as you let go, to slip the top card a little off the rest of the pack. In falling, the resistance of the air will turn the card over, and it will rest with its face upwards on the top of the pack.

16. THE SLIPPED CARD.

Ascertain the bottom card of the pack; hold the cards in your left hand, with their faces downwards. Place your right hand upon them, and with your right fore finger slide them slowly over each other, asking some one to stop any card he chooses, by putting his finger upon it. When he has done so, open the pack at that card, but while opening it, make the pass, and bring the bottom card under the one touched. Hold up the cards, and ask the chooser to be sure of his card; hand all the cards to him, and let him shuffle as much as he chooses. Afterwards discover the card in any manner that you prefer. The following is a good plan.

17. THE NAILED CARD.

Take a flat-headed nail, and file it down until its point is as sharp as a needle, and the head quite flat. The nail should be about half an inch long, or even shorter if anything. Pass the nail through the center of any card, say the ace of spades, and conceal it in your left hand.

Take another pack of cards, get the ace of spades to the bottom, and perform the preceding trick. When the cards are returned, shuffle them about, and exchange the pierced card for the other. Put the pierced card at the bottom of the pack, and throw the cards violently against a door, when the nail will be driven in by the pressure of the other cards against its head, and the chosen card will be seen nailed to the door. The nail should be put through the face of the card, so that when the others fall on the floor, it remains facing the spectators.

18. TO ASCERTAIN THE NUMBER OF POINTS ON THREE UNSEEN CARDS.

In this amusement the ace counts eleven, the court cards ten each, and the others according to the number of their spots.

Ask any one to choose any three cards, and lay them on the table, with their faces downwards. On each of these he must place as many as with the number of the card will make fifteen. He gives you the remaining cards, and when you have them in your hand, you count them over on the pretence of shuffling them, and by deducting four, you will have the number of points on the three cards.

For example, the spectator chooses a four, an eight, and a king. On the four he places eleven cards, on the eight seven, and on the king five. There will then be twenty-six cards left. Deduct from this twenty-six four, and the result will be twenty-two, which is the number of points on the three cards, the king counting ten, added to the eight and the four.

19. TO TELL THE NUMBERS ON TWO UNSEEN CARDS.

As in the preceding trick, the ace counts eleven, and the court cards ten each. Let the person who chooses the two cards lay them on the table with their faces downward, and place on each as many as will make their number twenty-five.

Take the remaining cards and count them, when they will be found to be just as many as the points in the two cards. For example, take an ace and a queen, _i. e._ eleven and ten, and lay them on the table. On the ace you must put fourteen cards, and on the queen fifteen. There will be then fifteen cards in one heap, and sixteen in the other: these added together make thirty-one cards: these subtracted from the number of cards in the pack, _i. e._ fifty-two, leave twenty-one, the joint number of the ace and queen.

20. THE KNAVES AND THE CONSTABLE.

Select the four knaves from a pack of cards, and one of the kings to perform the office of constable. Secretly place one of the knaves at the bottom of the pack, and lay the other three, with the constable, down upon the table. Proceed with a tale to the effect that three knaves once were to rob a house; one got in at the parlor window (putting a knave at the bottom of the pack, taking care not to lift the pack so high that the one already at the bottom can be seen); one effected his entrance at the first floor window (putting another knave in the middle of the pack); and the other, by getting on the parapet from a neighboring house, contrived to scramble in at the garret window (placing the third knave at the top of the pack); the constable vowed he would capture them, and closely followed the last knave (putting the king likewise upon the top of the pack). Then request as many of the company to cut the cards as please; and tell them that you have no doubt the constable has succeeded in his object, which will be quite evident, when you spread out the pack in your hands; as the king and three knaves will, if the trick is neatly performed, be found together. A very little practice only is required to enable you to convey a knave or any other card secretly to the bottom of the pack.

21. THE PAIRS RE-PAIRED.

Tell out twenty cards in pairs, and ask ten people to take a pair each, and remember them. Take up the pairs in their order, and lay them on the table in order, according to the accompanying table, which forms a memoria technica, and may be construed, "Mutus gave a name to the Coci," (a people who have yet to be discovered.)