[To Ascertain a Number Thought of]49
[How to Name a Number which has been Erased]51
[A Lesson in the Correct Formation of a Figure]52
[Four Nines Problem]53
[An Answer to a Sum Given in Advance]53
[An Arithmetical Puzzle]54
[An Arithmetical Mystery]55
[How to Tell Her Age]55
[A Race in Addition]56
[To Predict the Hour Your Friend Intends to Rise on the Following Morning]57

[MATCH PUZZLES]

[Experiment with Ten Matches]59
[The Magic Nine]60
[Triangles with Matches]61
[Match Squares]61
[Your Opponent must Take the Last Match]62
[A Shakespearean Quotation]63
[Numeral]63
[Six and Five Make Nine]63
[The Artful Schoolboys]64
[What are Matches Made of?]66
[A Sheep Pen]66
[Post and Rail Puzzle]67

[SIMPLE MISCELLANEOUS TRICKS]

[A Good After-Dinner Trick]68
[To Remove a Serviette Ring from a Tape Held on the Thumbs of Another Person]70
[An Experiment in Gravity]71
[A Scissors Feat]71
[Another Trick with a Pair of Scissors]72
[An Indestructible Cigarette Paper]73
[To Cut an Apple in Two with Your Finger]74
[A Trick with Dominoes]74
[An Escape]75
[Cigarette Papers and Serviettes]76
[Four Cigarette Papers]77
[A Hindoo Swindle]77
[The Elusive Match—a Capital Impromptu Trick]79

SIMPLE CARD TRICKS

AN EASY METHOD OF FINDING A SELECTED CARD

Throw the pack on the table and request some one to select a card. Then gather up the rest of the cards and request your friend to show his card to his neighbour, to avoid mistakes. While this is being done bend the pack slightly while pretending to shuffle it, and cause the card to be returned and the pack shuffled. The selected card can then be easily detected among the bent cards by its being perfectly straight. A good way to finish the trick is to bring the card to the top of the pack and cause it to project about an inch over the right side; cover the front end of the pack with your four fingers so that the edge of the projecting card is concealed, and, with your thumb at the other end, hold the pack firmly about eighteen inches above the table. Request the person who drew the card to call it by name. On this being done, drop the pack on the table, when the projecting card will be completely turned over by the air in its descent and lie perfectly square on the top of the pack. Another good finish is to bring the chosen card to the bottom of the pack, and requesting the person who selected it to hold the pack by pinching it tightly between his finger and thumb close to the corner, you give 10 the pack a sharp rap, when all the cards will fall excepting the one chosen.

TO BRING A CHOSEN CARD FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE PACK AT ANY NUMBER REQUESTED

Ask a member of the company to take a card, look at it, and return it to the pack. Make the “pass” (Hercat’s Card Tricks, p. 7); “palm” the card (Card Tricks, p. 18) and hand the pack to be shuffled. While this is being done transfer the palmed card to your left hand, and on receiving the pack back, place it over the concealed card, and tell the company you will produce the latter from the bottom of the pack at any number they may name. Supposing some one says, “Let it be the fifteenth card.” You push the pack forward in your left hand, allowing the bottom card to project about an inch toward you, and proceed to draw out the cards above it with your right hand, one at a time, until the fourteenth is reached, when you push the bottom card forward and produce it as the fifteenth.