Water Wizardry: A collection of tricks in which water is the chief agent

by Arthur Ainslie

This prepared card is at the back of the pack. While you are talking bring the right hand to the front of the pack, push up the back card with the first finger of the left hand, extend the fingers of the right hand and push the card to the tips of the fingers of the right hand, at the same time slide the card down on to the face of the pack.

This movement takes a long time to explain in print, but it is done in the fraction of a second. All you apparently do is to bring the right hand up to the pack to square up the cards.

Directly you have the "three card" at the face of the pack, bend the third and little fingers slightly and thus hide the place where the missing pip ought to be. The card is now apparently the same card which the audience saw before—a five spot with one spot missing.

This time, when you dip a finger into the water and pretend to wash away a spot you must work rather quickly, and as you take away the tips of the third and little fingers to enable you to wash away the pip which is supposed to be there, you must bring the right hand over the spot at once, otherwise the audience will see that the spot is not there! This time you have the advantage of being able to show the blank corner directly you take away your right hand. Take out your handkerchief, dab the corner with it and return it to your pocket.

Now tell your audience that if you wish to rub away two spots at once you have to use both hands. Take the cards in the right hand for a moment while you dip a finger of the left hand into the water. In the act of passing the cards from one hand to the other you slide the next card from the back to the front; this card has one pip in the centre. (If your cards have no index corners you can use the ace for this card.)

While you dip the finger of the left hand into the water you must hold the pack with the face card downwards; take it, in the same position, in the left hand, while you dip a finger of the right hand into the water. Then rub first one corner with the left hand and then the other corner with the right hand and bring up the pack with the card facing the audience, but hold the pack in both hands with the hands at the corners (top and bottom) as though you were merely hiding the pips there. Someone is sure to tell you to "take away your hands," and, apparently reluctantly, you do so, disclosing the card with the single pip in the centre. The laugh will then be in your favour, and you take advantage of this temporary diversion to slip the next card from the back to the front of the pack. Then hold the pack by the sides in the right hand with the fingers right over the centre, and the audience will think that the single pip is still there, being hidden by the fingers.

To conclude the trick you can say that your fingers are damp enough to manage one pip and you pretend to rub it off the face of the card, which is thus blank.

Take this card away in your right hand, and offer it to someone on your left hand for examination, taking care to turn the pack down with its face to the floor as you remove the blank card, otherwise the audience will see the next card, which is the one-pip card.

The object of handing the blank card to someone on your left is to enable you to turn in that direction in a natural way, because directly you have turned you drop the pack you are holding in the left-hand pocket of your coat (or dinner jacket) and take from it another pack, from which the five of clubs has been abstracted. This is important because a juvenile audience is merciless to an amateur conjurer as a rule and someone is sure to say: "Let us have a look at the cards." Don't be in too great a hurry to hand them out for examination; always "play" with the younger members of your audience when you get the chance to do so. Of course, if the children are so exceedingly well behaved that they do not ask to see the cards you must suggest that "perhaps you would like to have a look at the cards," but I hope for your sake that the children are not of that kind. An audience of very prim and proper children may be easy to a conjurer, because they do not attempt to catch him out, but in another sense they are very difficult because it is by no means easy to engage and hold their attention. I much prefer an audience of children who are quite natural and who are therefore always eager to pounce upon any little weak point—or point which they think is weak—in a trick.

The preparation of the trick cards required for this trick is not a difficult matter. If expense is no object the best plan is to buy several packs of cards, with the backs all alike. A blank card usually goes with each pack. If the cards have no index corners you need prepare only two trick cards—one with four spots on it and one with three. To get the spots, put a ten-spot card in cold water and let it soak until you can peel away the face of it. Dry it on clean blotting paper. Then cut out the spots very neatly and paste them on two of the blank cards, taking care to get the pips at the corners in the right positions.