If examined attentively, it will be seen, that the designs are not always the same distance from the edge of the card. The manufacturer himself, and players in general, pay little attention to these irregularities, but the Greek turns them to account, and makes them useful in his tricks.
By the time the cards have been dealt two or three times round, he can distinguish many of them.
Sharpers are themselves often the manufacturers of their own cards, and can, therefore, arrange and place their designs where they please.
For instance, let us suppose that the design consists of a series of lozenges, placed one above the other. The Greek would so arrange them that, at the edge of the card, the lozenge should be entire for the ace. Then, as it approaches the edge, it is cut in half for the queen, quarterly for the king, and three-quarters for the knave.
In the same way, on the upper side of the card, the lozenges, by similar arrangements, would point out the spades, hearts, clubs, or diamonds, and also show the principal cards in the game of Piquet.
All this would seem to be the effect of chance, and no one could assert that there was anything fraudulent.
PART IX.
THE MARKED, OR SPOTTED CARDS.
This trick of marking cards, is equal to any of the most refined abbreviations used in stenography, as here, by the aid of a single spot, any one of the thirty-two cards in the game of Piquet may be known.
We will imagine, for example, a design formed of spots, or some other device, arranged symmetrically, as these sorts of patterns usually are. For instance, as in figure 21.
The first large spot, beginning from the top of the card, on the left hand, will represent a heart; the second, in descending, a diamond, the third a club, and the fourth a spade.