The xxvii. Chapter.
Of cards, with good cautions how to avoid cousenage therein: speciall rules to conveie and handle the cards, and the maner and order how to accomplish all difficult and strange things wrought with cards.
AVING now bestowed some waste monie among you, I will set you to cards; by which kind of witchcraft a great number of people have juggled awaie not onelie their monie, but also their lands,/332. their health, their time, and their honestie. I dare not (as I could) shew the lewd juggling that chetors practise, least it minister some offense to the well disposed, to the simple hurt and losses, and to the wicked occasion of evill dooing.Of dice plaie & the like unthriftie games, mark these two olde verses: Ludens taxillis bene respice quid sit in illis, Mors tua fors tua res tua spes tua pendet in illis: and remember them. But I would wish all gamesters to beware, not onlie with what cards and dice they plaie, but speciallie with whome & where they exercise gaming. And to let dice passe (as whereby a man maie be inevitablie cousened) one that is skilfull to make and use Bumcards, may undoo a hundreth wealthie men that are given to gaming: but if he have a confederate present, either of/234. the plaiers or standers by, the mischiefe cannot be avoided. If you plaie among strangers, beware of him that seemes simple or drunken; for under their habit the most speciall couseners are presented, & while you thinke by their simplicitie and imperfections to beguile them (and therof perchance are persuaded by their confederats, your verie freends as you thinke) you your selfe will be most of all overtaken. Beware also of bettors by, and lookers on, and namelie of them that bet on your side: for whilest they looke in your game without suspicion, they discover it by signes to your adversaries, with whome they bet, and yet are their confederates.
But in shewing feats, and juggling with cards, the principall point consisteth in shuffling them nimblie, and alwaies keeping one certeine card either in the bottome, or in some knowne place of the stocke, foure or five cards from it. Hereby you shall seeme to worke woonders; for it will be easie for you to see or spie one card, which though you be perceived to doo, it will not be suspected, if you shuffle them well afterwards. Note.And this note I must give you, that in reserving the bottome card, you must alwaies (whilest you shuffle) keepe him a little before or a little behind all the cards lieng underneath him, bestowing him (I saie) either a little beyond his fellowes before, right over the forefinger, or else behind the rest, so as the little finger of the left hand may meete with it: which is the easier, the readier, and the better waie. In the beginning of your shuffling, shuffle as thicke as you can; and in the end throw upon the stocke the nether card (with so manie mo at the least as you would have preserved for anie purpose) a little before or behind the rest. Provided alwaies, that your forefinger, if the packe be laied before, or the little finger, if the packe lie be/hind,333. creepe up to meete with the bottome card, and not lie betwixt the cards: and when you feele it, you may there hold it, untill you have shuffled over the cards againe, still leaving your kept card below. Being perfect herein, you may doo almost what you list with the cards. By this meanes, what packe soever you make, though it consist of eight, twelve, or twentie cards, you may keepe them still together unsevered next to the nether card, and yet shuffle them often to satisfie the curious beholders. As for example, and for brevities sake, to shew you diverse feats under one.
How to deliver out foure aces, and to convert them into foure knaves.
MAke a packe of these eight cards; to wit, foure knaves and foure aces: and although all the eight cards must lie immediatlie together, yet must ech knave and ace be evenlie severed, and the same eight cards must lie also in the lowest place of the bunch. You must be well advised in the shuffling of the bunch, least you overshoot your selfe.Then shuffle them so, as alwaies at the second shuffling, or at least wise at the end of your shuffling the said packe, and of the packe one ace may lie nethermost, or so as you may know where he goeth and lieth: and alwaies (I saie) let your foresaid packe with three or foure cards more lie unseparablie together immediatlie upon and with that ace. Then using some speech or other devise, and putting your hands with the cards to the edge of the table to hide the action, let out privilie a peece of the second card, which is one of the knaves, holding/235. foorth the stocke in both your hands, and shewing to the standers by the nether card (which is the ace or kept card) covering also the head or peece of the knave (which is the next card) with your foure fingers, draw out the same knave, laieng it downe on the table: then shuffle againe, keeping your packe whole, and so have you two aces lieng together in the bottome. And therfore, to reforme that disordered card, as also for a grace and countenance to that action, take off the uppermost card of the bunch, and thrust it into the middest of the cards; and then take awaie the nethermost card, which is one of your said aces, and bestow him likewise. Then may you begin as before, shewing an other ace, and in steed thereof, laie downe an other knave: and so foorth, untill in steed of foure aces you/334. have laied downe foure knaves. The beholders all this while thinking that there lie foure aces on the table, are greatlie abused, and will marvell at the transformation.
How to tell one what card he seeth in the bottome, when the same card is shuffled into the stocke.
WHen you have seene a card privilie, or as though you marked it not, laie the same undermost, and shuffle the cards as before you are taught, till your card lie againe below in the bottome. Then shew the same to the beholders, willing them to remember it: then shuffle the cards, or let anie other shuffle them; for you know the card alreadie, and therefore may at anie time tell them what card they saw: which** For that will drawe the action into the greater admiration. neverthelesse would be done with great circumstance and shew of difficultie.
An other waie to doo the same, having your selfe indeed never seene the card.
IF you can see no card, or be suspected to have seene that which you meane to shew, then let a stander by first shuffle, and afterwards take you the cards into your hands, and (having shewed and not seene the bottome card) shuffle againe, and keepe the same card, as before you are taught; and either make shift then to see it when their suspicion is past, which maie be done by letting some cards fall, or else laie downe all the cards in heaps, remembring where you laid your bottome card. Then spie how manie cards lie in some one heape, and laie the heape where your bottome card is upon that heape, and all the other heapes upon the same: and so, if there were five cards in the heape wheron you laied your card, then the same must be the sixt card, which now you may throw out, or looke upon without suspicion: and tell them the card they saw.
To tell one without confederacie what card he thinketh.
LAie three cards on a table, a little waie distant, and bid a stander by be true and not waver, The eie bewraieth the thought.but thinke one of them three, and by his eie you shall assuredlie perceive which he both seeth and thinketh. And you shall doo the like, if you cast downe a whole/335. paire of cards with the faces upward,/236. wherof there will be few or none plainlie perceived, and they also coate cards. But as you cast them downe suddenlie, so must you take them up presentlie, marking both his eie and the card whereon he looketh.