Bob had been riffling the cards back and forth from one hand to the other, and he might have skipped it had not the deck slipped and scattered on the floor. He picked them up and his face was red, not entirely from bending over. He held out the deck to Walter. “You must be good on cards, too,” he said. “If you could give my trick away, you must know some. G’wan, do one.”
Walter took the deck a little reluctantly, and thought a minute. Then, with Elsie watching him eagerly, he picked out three cards, holding them so no one else could see them, and put the deck back down. Then he held up the three cards, in a V shape, and said, “I’ll put one of these on top, one on bottom, and one in the middle of the deck and bring them together with a cut. Look, it’s the two of diamonds, the ace of diamonds, and the three of diamonds.”
He turned them around again so the backs of the cards were towards his audience and began to place them one on top the deck, one in the middle, and—
“Aw, I get that one,” Bob said. “That wasn’t the ace of diamonds. It was the ace of hearts and you held it between the other two so just the point of the heart showed. You got that ace of diamonds already planted on top the deck.” He grinned triumphantly.
Mae said, “Bob, that was mean. Wally anyway let you finish your stunt before he said anything.”
Elsie frowned at Bob, too. Then her face suddenly lit up and she went across to the closet and opened the door and took a cardboard box off the top shelf. “Just remembered this,” she said. “It’s from a year ago when I had a part in a ballet at the social centre. A top hat.”
She opened the box and took it out. It was dented and, despite the box, a bit dusty, but it was indubitably a top hat. She put it, on its crown, on the table near Walter. “You said you could do a good one with a hat, Walter,” she said. “Show him.”
Everybody was looking at Walter and he shifted uncomfortably. “I—I was just kidding him, Elsie. I don’t—I mean it’s been so long since I tried that kind of stuff when I was a kid, and everything. I don’t remember it.”
Bob grinned happily and stood up. His glass and Walter’s were empty and he filled them, and he put a little more into the girls’ glasses, although they weren’t empty yet. Then he picked up a yardstick that was in the corner and flourished it like a circus barker’s cane. He said, “Step this way, ladies and gentleman, to see the one and only Walter Beekman do the famous non-existent trick with the black top hat. And in the next cage we have—”
“Bob, shut up,” said Mae.