He cheerfully gives up the struggle, saying “You seem to think, sir, that I wish to influence your choice in some way. To prove the contrary, I give the pack into your own hands. Shuffle it well. Thank you. Now take from it any card you please. Look at it, and put it in your pocket. You are satisfied, I presume, that I do not know that card? You are quite right. I have not the smallest idea of it, but I shall discover it without the smallest difficulty by a process of mathematical magic. I have here” (producing pocket-book) “a little book of six pages, on each of which thirty-six cards are illustrated. Will you kindly see whether the card you chose is represented among those on the first page? Meanwhile I will divide the pack, which please remember I have not touched since you shuffled it yourself, into six portions, one for each page of the book.” This is done, the six packets being turned face down on the table.
We will suppose that the chosen card is not found on the first page. “Then,” says the performer, “this first packet will tell me nothing, and may be disregarded. Now, for the second page, is your card upon that? It is? Then I draw two cards from the second heap, and turn up one of them. And now for the third page. Do you find your card there? You do? Then I take up three cards from the third packet, and again turn up the last one.”
We will suppose that the chosen card is not found in either the fourth or the fifth page, but re-appears on the sixth, whereupon six cards are counted off from the corresponding packet, and the last of them turned up. The performer has by this time mentally added up the key numbers of the second, third and sixth pages: viz., 2, 4 and 32, together making 38, and knows therefrom that the card is the thirty-eighth in the list, viz., the queen of spades. He does not however at once display his knowledge, but pretends to make a mental calculation from the cards exposed upon the table, giving, if he so pleases, and the cards lend themselves to it, some fanciful explanation of his method. It seems to me, however, that this last is a needless elaboration. Personally, I should prefer merely to call attention by name to the cards exposed, and say, “When these three cards appear in conjunction, it is clear that the card drawn was the queen of spades” (or whatever it may happen to be). Any one deluded, as the majority will probably be, into believing that you really infer the name of the drawn card from those on the table, will be farther from the real solution than ever.
CONCERNING PATTER
It will doubtless have been observed that I have in the foregoing pages been somewhat lavish in respect of patter. I have done so for two or three reasons.
First, in order to enable the reader to form a better estimate of the effect of the trick presented, duly clothed and coloured, to the mind of the spectator. A trick described, however minutely, from the mere mechanical or technical point of view, gives scarcely more idea of its actual effect than the rough charcoal sketch of the artist does of the finished painting. Secondly, because ready-made patter, if the reader cares to use it, will save him a considerable amount of trouble. My third reason is more personal, namely, that it has been a labour of love to do so. To my mind the devising of some little bit of appropriate fiction to serve as introduction to a trick is the pleasantest part of the inventor’s work.
It may perhaps be thought that I have, in some of the more ambitious tricks, been overliberal in this particular. I remember thinking, after witnessing a “show” by Dr. Lynn, a popular performer of the last generation, that he had talked a great deal, and done very little, and that I had had very little real magic for my money. On the other hand, the loquacious doctor was always amusing, and it must not be forgotten that to amuse, even more than to puzzle, is the raison d’être of the modern magician. It seems to me therefore quite legitimate to use, to a reasonable extent, the art of the raconteur to supplement that of the magician.
If my own patter is in some cases found superabundant, I have at any rate done my best to make it amusing, and if the reader opines that I have not paid sufficient regard to the late Mr. Ducrow’s celebrated maxim, “Cut the cackle, and come to the ’osses,” he is quite at liberty to cut my cackle to what he may consider more reasonable proportions. No doubt, time would be saved thereby. If, for instance, he were to cut out the little romantic fictions with which I have introduced “The Miracle of Mumbo Jumbo” and “The Story of the Alkahest,” and start “right away” with the bare performance of the trick, both could be exhibited in little more time than I have allotted to either alone. Which treatment is likely to give the greater satisfaction to his audience, he must decide for himself.