TO TELL THE CARDS BY THEIR WEIGHT.
Ask a person to cut the pack as often as he likes, undertaking by weighing each card for a moment on your finger, not only to tell the colour, but the suit and number of spots, and, if a court card, whether it is king, queen, or knave.
Have two packs of cards exactly alike: one pack to be constantly in use during the evening in performing your other tricks; the second, or prepared pack, in your pocket, which take an opportunity of exchanging, so that it may be believed that the pack of cards of which you tell the names is the same as that you have been doing your other tricks with, and which they must know have been well shuffled.
The manner of preparing your pack (which must be done previously) is by the following line, which you commit to memory, the words in italics forming the key:
Eight Kings threa-tened to save nine fair Ladies for one sick Knave.
Eight King three ten two seven nine five Queen four ace six Knave.
The initial letter of the words in the line and the names of the cards are identical. The word “threatened” is divided into two words, in order that it may answer for the three and ten; pay attention to this, or you may forget the ten altogether, which would set you entirely wrong. You should likewise commit to memory the order in which the suits come, viz. hearts—spades—diamonds—clubs.
You should now separate the different suits, and lay them on the table, face upwards, hearts first, then spades, diamonds next, and clubs last. Having done so, begin to sort (to yourself), according to your key: take up the eight of hearts, placing it in the left hand face up; then the king of spades, which you lay upon it, next the three of diamonds, next the ten of clubs, then the two of hearts, and so on, until you finish your line, which will terminate with the knave of hearts. You then take up the eight of spades, and go on in the same way till you come to the knave of spades, when you begin again with the eight of diamonds, and go on until you come to the knave of diamonds and beginning again with the eight of clubs, you go on until you come to the knave of clubs, which finishes the pack, and which is now ready for use; when you have made your exchange, and brought forward your prepared pack, hand it round to be cut.
You now want to know the first card, as a clue to the rest; and therefore take off the top card, and, holding it up between you and the light, you see what the card is, saying, at the same time, that the old way of performing the trick was by doing so, but that was very easily detected.
Having thus obtained a knowledge of the first card, which we will suppose to be the ten of diamonds, you then take the next card on your finger, and, while pretending to weigh it, you have time to recollect what is the next word in your key, to ten’d, which is to; you consequently know that this card is a two; you must then recollect what suit comes after diamonds, which is clubs; you, therefore, declare the card you are now weighing on your finger to be the two of clubs; the next will of course be the seven of hearts, the next to that the nine of spades, and so on as long as you please.
Variation.—Take a parcel of cards, suppose 40, among which insert two long cards; let the first be, for example, the 15th, and the other the 26th from the top. Seem to shuffle the cards, and then cutting them at the first long card, poise those you have cut off in your left hand, and say, “there should be here fifteen cards.” Cut them again at the second long card, and say, “There are here only eleven cards.” Then poising the remainder, you say, “Here are fourteen cards.”