Christian names, towns, animals, fishes, shape, etc., can also be arranged in the same manner.
The next process, after committing such grouped subjects to memory, is to study a code for numbers, which you will easily acquire in one lesson, the only difficulty you will find being in the rapid application of it. The numbers will be represented by letters thus:—
- 1. t. d.
- 2. n.
- 3. m.
- 4. r.
- 5. l.
- 6. h.
- 7. k; hard c; hard g.
- 8. f. w. v.
- 9. b. p.
- 0. s. z.
If one figure only is required the interlocutor will ask for the figure; if two figures he will ask for the number; if three he will precede his question with ‘good,’ and the clairvoyant will know that he has entered into hundreds. If there are four figures he will say, ‘Very good,’ and that will indicate thousands; if five, ‘Very good, sir,’ or ‘madam,’ equivalent to tens of thousands. For six figures ‘good again,’ hundreds of thousands; and ‘If you please’ will act as a full stop. Example: ‘Tell me now, if you please, what figures there are here?’—t m n (132) precede the full stop of ‘If you please,’ and the interlocutor has dropped the ‘good,’ which would have warned the clairvoyant that three figures had to be deciphered. Again, ‘There are figures here. Very good. Find the numbers, can you?’ ‘Yes,’ says the clairvoyant, taking the first four initial letters after ‘Very good;’ ‘eight thousand one hundred and twenty-seven;’ and great is the marvel of the audience thereat.
The last and most difficult problem of all appertaining to our subject—though, luckily, the most easily dispensed with for private performance—is the abstruse Alphabet, by which the clairvoyant may learn the name of a person or gain other particulars in a way quite unsuspected by the spectators. This is managed by taking B to represent A, C to stand for B, and so on, always being one letter in advance of the ordinary alphabet, save in the variations noted below. Thus—
- A in the code will be B
- B in the code will be C
- C in the code will be D
- D in the code will be E
- E in the code will be F
- F in the code will be G
- G in the code will be H
- H in the code will be I
- I & J in the code will be K
- K in the code will be L
- L in the code will be M
- M in the code will be N
- N in the code will be O
- O in the code will be P
- P in the code will be Q
- Q in the code will be R
- R in the code will be S
- S in the code will be T
- T in the code will be U
- U in the code will be V
- V in the code will be W
- W in the code will be A
- X in the code will be Easy.
- Y in the code will be Very easy.
- Z in the code will be Plain.
To illustrate this, say the interlocutor has an address card with ‘William Brown’ printed upon it; he would first ask the Christian name by the grouping process, and then, to get at the surname might say, ‘Come, speak plainly at once, if you please, the gentleman’s name?’ C S P A O is translated into BROWN by the above system, and the answer is correct. This transposition of letters, as we have said, is very difficult, but if once acquired, brings the reward of being eminently puzzling with it.
In addition to all here set forth, the ‘cue’ is frequently given to the clairvoyant in a very simple manner as, ‘Is it large or small?’ ‘It is small.’ ‘Plain, or with stones?’ ‘There are stones in it.’ ‘Is it gold?’ ‘No; only gilt.’ ‘Does this belong to a gentleman or a lady?’ ‘To a lady.’ Besides this, intonations, dwellings upon certain words, a hesitating cough, or an apparently chance remark let fall to one of the audience, conveys much to the initiated, and allows of that variation which is so necessary in public exhibitions to prevent persons getting at the secret. One very old and extremely useful form of question—generally used at the close of an entertainment—is the Sequence, the interlocutor touching various articles worn or held in his immediate neighbourhood, and rapidly receiving replies from the clairvoyant, though his questions are of the simplest. This is done by numbering a set of such general articles as are sure to be met with. Thus, if it is wet weather, overcoats and umbrellas will be plentiful; if fine, sticks, parasols, and fans will be in the ascendant. Let three or four codes be arranged for these, so as to vary the sequence and avoid detection, thus:—