each to show his card, when they will be found to have obeyed your commands. The attention of the audience being naturally attracted to the two cards on the table, you will have little difficulty in palming and pocketing the second knave of spades, which is still at the bottom of the pack, and which, if discovered, would spoil the effect of the trick.
To Change Four Cards, drawn haphazard, and placed on the table, into Cards of the same Value as a Single Card subsequently chosen by one of the Spectators.—This trick is on the same principle as that last above described, but is much more brilliant in effect. To perform it, it is necessary, or at least desirable, to possess a forcing pack consisting of one card several times repeated. We will suppose your forcing pack to consist of queens of diamonds. Before commencing the trick, you must secretly prepare your ordinary pack in the following manner:—Place at the bottom any indifferent card, and on this a queen; then another indifferent card, then another queen; another indifferent card, then another queen; another indifferent card, and on it the fourth and last queen. You thus have at the bottom the four queens, each with an ordinary card next below it. Each indifferent card should be of the same suit as the queen next above it, so that all of the four suits may be represented. Shuffle the cards, taking care however, not to disturb the eight cards above mentioned. Then say, “I am about to take four cards from the bottom, and place them on the table. Will you please to remember what they are?” Show the bottom card, then, dropping the pack to the horizontal position, “draw back” that card, and take the next, which is one of the queens, and, without showing it, lay it face downwards on the table. You now want to get rid of the card you have already shown, which is still at the bottom. To effect this without arousing suspicion, the best and easiest plan is to shuffle each time after drawing a card, not disturbing the arranged cards at the bottom, but concluding the shuffle by placing the bottom card, which is the one you desire to get rid of, on the top of the pack. Thus after each shuffle you are enabled to show a fresh bottom card, which, however, you slide back, and draw the next card (a queen) instead. Repeat this four times, when you will have all four queens on the table, though the audience imagine them to be the four cards they have just seen. In order to impress this more fully upon them, ask some one to repeat the names of the four cards. While the attention of the audience is thus occupied, you secretly exchange the pack you have been using for your forcing pack, and advancing to the audience say, “Now I shall ask some one to draw a card; and whatever card is drawn, I will, without even touching them, transform the four cards on the table to cards of the same value. Thus, if you draw a king they shall all become kings; if you draw a ten, they shall become tens, and so on. Now, choose your card, as deliberately as you please.” You spread the cards before the drawer, allowing him perfect freedom of choice, as, of course, whatever card he draws must necessarily be a queen of diamonds. You ask him to be good enough to say what the card he has drawn is, and on being told that it is a queen, you say, “Then, by virtue of my magic power, I order that the four cards now on the table change to queens. Pray observe that I do not meddle with them in any way. I merely touch each with my wand, so! Will some one kindly step forward, and bear witness that the change has really taken place.”
If you do not possess a forcing pack, but rely upon your own skill in forcing with an ordinary pack, it is well to prepare this second beforehand by placing the four queens (supposing that you desire a queen to be drawn) at the bottom. Making the pass as you advance to the company, you bring these to the middle and present the pack. It is comparatively easy to insure one or other of four cards placed together being drawn.
Two Heaps of Cards, unequal in Number, being placed upon the Table, to predict beforehand which of the two the Company will choose.—There is an old schoolboy trick, which consists in placing on the table two heaps of cards, one consisting of seven indifferent cards, and the other of the four sevens. The performer announces that he will predict beforehand (either verbally or in writing) which of the two heaps the company will choose; and fulfils his undertaking by declaring that they will choose “the seven heap.” This description will suit either heap, being in the one case understood to apply to the number of cards in the heap, in the other case to denote the value of the individual cards.
The trick in this form would not be worth noticing, save as a prelude to a newer and really good method of performing the same feat. You place on the table two heaps of cards, each containing the same number, say six cards, which may be the first that come to hand, the value of the cards being in this case of no consequence. You announce that, of the two heaps, one contains an odd and the other an even number. This is, of course, untrue; but it is one of the postulates of a conjuror’s performance that he may tell professionally as many fibs as he likes, and that his most solemn asseverations are only to be taken in a Pickwickian sense. You continue, “I do not tell you which heap is odd and which is even, but I will predict to you, as many times as you like, which heap you will choose. Observe, I do not influence your choice in any way. I may tell you that you will this time choose the heap containing the odd number.” While delivering this harangue, you take the opportunity of palming in your right hand a single card from the top of the pack, and place the remainder of the cards apart on the table. When the audience have made their choice, you pick up the chosen heap with the right hand, thereby adding the palmed card to that heap, and, coming forward, ask some one to verify your prediction. The number is, naturally, found to be odd. You then bring forward the second heap, which is found to be even. Join the two heaps together, and again separate them, palming the top card of the odd heap, replace the two heaps on the table, and this time predict that the audience will choose the heap containing the even number. When they have made their selection, you have only to pick up the non-chosen heap with the hand containing the palmed card, and the chosen heap with the empty hand.
You may with truth assure the audience that you could go on all the evening predicting their choice with equal certainty, but it is best not to repeat the trick too often. You will do wisely to pass on at once to the next trick, which will enable you to display your powers of divination in a yet more surprising form.
A Row of Cards being placed Face Downwards on the Table, to indicate, by turning up one of them, how many of such Cards have during your absence been transferred from one end of the Row to the other.—This trick is somewhat out of place in this chapter, inasmuch as it involves no sleight-of-hand, but we insert it here as forming an appropriate sequel to that last described. It is thus performed:—You deal from the top of the pack, face downwards on the table, a row of fifteen cards. To all appearance, you are quite indifferent what cards you take, but, in reality, you have pre-arranged the first ten cards in the following manner:—First a ten, then a nine, then an eight, and so on down to the ace inclusive. The suits are of no consequence. The eleventh card should be a blank card, if you have one of the same pattern as the pack; if not, a knave will do. This card, in the process which follows, will stand for 0. When the fifteen cards are dealt, their arrangement will therefore be as follows:—
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, *, *, *, *—
the four asterisks representing any four indifferent cards. This special arrangement is, of course, unknown to the audience. You now offer to leave the room, and invite the audience, during your absence, to remove any number of the cards (not exceeding ten) from the right hand end of the row, and place them, in the same order, at the other end of the row. On your return, you have only to turn up the eleventh card, counting from the beginning or left hand end, which will indicate by its points the number of cards removed. A few examples will illustrate this fact. Thus, suppose that two cards only have been removed from the right to the left hand end, the row thus altered will be as follows:—
*, *, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, [2], 1, 0, *, *.
The eleventh card from the left will be a two, being the number moved. Suppose that seven cards have been removed, the new arrangement will be—
2, 1, 0, *, *, *, *, 10, 9, 8, [7], 6, 5, 4, 3,
and the card in the eleventh place will be a seven. Suppose the audience avail themselves of your permission to the fullest extent, and remove ten cards, the same result follows.
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