Holiday Frolics; Or, Endless Amusement for the Christmas Fireside / Containing, the Most Astonishing Feats of Legerdemain, and Astounding Conjurings; Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Tricks With Cards & Dice. Art of Making Fireworks; Together With an Excellent Collection of Puzzles, Conundrums, Riddles, Charades, &c. &c. The Whole Admirably Calculated to Beguile the Leisure Hours of Our Holiday Friends. Embellished With a Copper-plate Engraving

by Anonymous

To tell the amount of the Numbers of any two Cards drawn from a common Pack.

Let the person who has drawn the two cards deduct the number of each of them from twenty-six, which is half the number of the pack, and after adding the remainder together, let him tell you the total, which you privately deduct from fifty-two, the number of cards in a perfect pack, and the remainder will be the amount of the two cards.

Example.

Suppose the two cards drawn are 5 and 8; then the person deducting 5 from 26, there remain 21; then 8 from 26 there remain 18; these two remainders added together make 39, which you substract from 52, and there remain 13 the number of the two cards when added together.

To tell the number of Cards by their weight.

Take a parcel of cards, suppose forty, among which insert two long cards, let the first be, for example, the tenth, and the other the fourteenth 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, “there should be here ten cards.” Cut them again, at the second long card, and say, “there are only four cards.” Then weighing the remainder, you say, “here are only twenty-eight cards.”

To hold four Knaves, or four Kings, in your hand, and to change them suddenly into Blank Cards, and then into four Aces.

You must have cards made for the purpose of this feat, half cards, as they may be properly termed, that is, one half kings or knaves and the other half aces. When you lay the aces one over the other, nothing but the kings or knaves will be seen. Then turning the kings or knaves downwards, the four aces will be seen. You must have two perfect cards, one a king or knave to cover one of the aces, or else it will be seen; and the other an ace to lay over the kings or knaves. When you wish to make them all blank cards, lay the cards a little lower, and by hiding the aces they will all appear white on both sides. You may then ask the company which they choose, and exhibit kings, aces, or blanks, as required.

Cards in couples.

Select any twenty cards, and having them shuffled by any person that pleases, lay them in pairs upon the table, then desire several persons (as many as there are pairs on the table) to look at different pairs, and remember what cards compose them. You then take up the cards in the order in which they have been placed, and replace them with their faces uppermost upon the table, according to the situation of the letters in the following word.