THOSE NAUGHTY KNAVES
This item may be described, if preferred, as “Knavish Tricks.”
Requirements. Card mat loaded with knaves of spades, hearts and diamonds, taken from the pack in use. Knave of clubs on top of pack.
Presentation. Advance, palming off the knave of clubs, and offer pack to be shuffled. When it is returned, force the knave on one of the company. Borrow a hat, and after showing that it is empty, place it, crown downwards, on the table. Receive back the drawn card upon the mat, remarking that you will place it in the hat, which you do accordingly, the other three knaves going in with it. Then, assuming a worried expression, deliver patter to something like the following effect.
“I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall not be able to show you the experiment I had intended. I have a telepathic nerve in my left thumb, a sort of private fire alarm, only more so, which always gives me warning when things are going wrong, and I feel it now. If you have read ‘Macbeth,’ you will remember that one of the witches says:
‘By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.’
“I have often wondered whether that old lady could have been a sort of great-great-great grandmother of mine. Magic certainly runs in the family, and we may have inherited it from her. Anyhow, I have just the same sort of sensation myself. Unfortunately, in my case the warning is incomplete. I dare say you will remember that story (I rather think it’s in Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’), about Little Queen Cole. Her Majesty had the misfortune to develop a mole upon her nose, and King Cole was worried about it. He consulted Old Moore and Zadkiel, and all the leading astrologers of the day, but all they could tell him was
‘A mole upon the face
Shows that something will take place,
But not what that something will be.’
That’s just my case. My prophetic thumb merely tells me that something is wrong, but doesn’t say what. It may be drains, or the house on fire, or something in the county court. You never can tell!
“Of course it’s nothing of that sort now. In the present case it has no doubt something to do with the experiment I want to show you. You chose your card quite freely, did you not, Madam? It never matters to me in the least what card is chosen, with the exception of one particular card, which is a holy terror. May I ask if you happened to draw the knave of clubs? Yes? I feared as much. The knave of clubs is the bane of my life. He is always endeavouring to get himself chosen, and then he does his best to upset my arrangements. And the worst of it is, he leads away the other three knaves. The four of them form a secret society, which they call ‘The cheerful blackguards.’ The knave of clubs is the president, and the rest have to do just as he tells them. He communicates with them by means of a sort of wireless telegraphy, and when he calls they go to him at once.” (You here make the “click.”) “Did you hear that sound? That’s his call now, despatched by wireless from the hat to the very middle of the pack. I have no doubt that we shall find that the other three knaves have already left it, and joined him in the hat.” (Make believe to look over the pack, and hand it to a spectator.) “Yes! just as I thought: they are all gone.” (To a spectator.) “See for yourself, sir. Not a single knave left. And here they all are, in the hat.” (Whence they are produced accordingly.)
As the “click” in some cases adds much to the effect of a trick, and as it may to some readers be an unfamiliar sleight, I may pause to explain that it is executed as follows: Take the pack in either hand, held upright between forefinger and thumb, a little more than halfway down, with the middle finger curled up behind it as in Fig. 13. With the tip of the third finger bend back the extreme bottom corners of the last half dozen or so of the cards, allowing them to escape again smartly. The sound made by the corners in springing back again constitutes the “click.” It needs a little practice, but if the cards are held properly, and the sleight worked smartly, the sound will be audible at a considerable distance, whilst the movement of the finger producing it is quite invisible to the spectators.
Fig. 13
But we have not yet done with our trick. You may resume as follows:
“I will give you a further illustration of what I have to put up with from the knaves. I should like you to be satisfied that I have nothing to do with their bad behaviour.” (You palm off the three top cards, and with the same hand offer the four knaves to a spectator.) “Will you, sir, make sure that these really are the four knaves, and then place them here on the top of the pack,”—offered with the left hand. When the knaves have been laid upon it, you transfer it to the opposite hand, and palm on to them the three concealed cards, but immediately slide them off again, with the uppermost of the four knaves beneath them. You hold them up in a careless way, so that the audience, catching sight of this card, may be confirmed in the belief that the cards exhibited in the right hand are really the four knaves.
“Here we have the four knaves, at present all together. I will now distribute them in different parts of the pack, as far apart as possible. One here, nearly at the bottom, one a little higher up, another about the middle, and this last” (you show it carelessly), “close to the top.” (This, being a genuine knave, must be placed among the other knaves.) “They could hardly be placed farther apart than that: but to make things a little more difficult for them, I will ask some lady to cut the cards.”
This done, and the cards handed back to you, you repeat the click. “There it is again: the wireless signal. You can all bear witness that I have nothing to do with the matter. Now, Sir, will you kindly examine the pack, and unless I am much mistaken, you will find that the other three knaves have answered Black Jack’s call, and that the four cheerful blackguards have got together again, in which case, with your permission, I will leave them severely alone, and try some other experiment.”
The expert will recognise this last effect as a “chestnut” among card tricks, but it is none the worse on that account, and it forms a particularly appropriate sequel to the principal trick.
If the performer possesses the “flower-pot,” one of these will naturally be used in place of the hat.