TO NAME THE NUMBER OF CARDS THAT A PERSON SHALL TAKE OUT OF THE PACK.
To perform this recreation you must so arrange a piquet pack of cards that you can easily remember the order in which they are placed. Suppose, for example, that they are placed according to the words in the following line.
Seven aces, eight kings, nine queens, and ten knaves, and that every card be of a different suit, following each other in this order; spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds. Then the eight first cards will be the seven of spades, ace of clubs, eight of hearts, king of diamonds, nine of spades, queen of clubs, ten of hearts, and knave of diamonds; and so on.
You show that the cards are placed promiscuously, and then offer them with the backs upward, to any one, that he may draw what quantity he pleases; which, when he has done, you secretly look at the card that precedes, and that which follows those he has taken. After he has well regarded the cards, you take them from him, and putting them into different parts of the pack, shuffle them, or give them to him to shuffle. During which you recollect by the foregoing line all the cards he took out; and as you lay them down, one by one, you name each card.