Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun

by Various

TO SHOW THE FIVE CARDS FIVE DIFFERENT PERSONS HAVE SELECTED.

This is a clever variety of the above trick, or rather, the above is a variety of this. On the top of the pack the performer should put any card the designation of which he knows—suppose, again, the jack of hearts; make the pass, bring that card to the middle of the pack, and force it upon some person to whom the pack is offered from which to draw a card. Take the card back, without, of course, looking at it, and again repeat the process until the same card has been forced upon five or more different persons. The persons asked to draw the cards in this trick should be placed at some distance from each other, and each should be requested not to make known to any one the card drawn. This is necessary to prevent the audience from suspecting that a particular card is being forced, but the reason given may be attributed to sharp hearing on the part of the performer, or some other equally plausible tale may be invented. Shuffle the whole pack, without, however, losing sight of the forced card, and deliberately select four cards in addition to the forced card, or sufficient cards to agree with the number of persons upon whom the card has been forced. Place the cards selected face downwards on a table, and when all are placed pick them up, hold them fan-wise towards the audience, and ask each person alternately whether the card he selected is not held out. Of course all will answer "Yes." To prevent conversation on the subject of this trick, proceed at once to some other, prefacing it with some such observation as, "By a careful attention to the movements of my hands, the audience will probably detect the secret of the clever little trick I am about to exhibit." Then show off some very familiar trick in as roundabout a way as possible, until the jack of hearts is probably forgotten.

TO TELL THE CARD THOUGHT OF OUT OF THIRTY-FIVE EXPOSED CARDS.

Deal out thirty-five cards, faces uppermost, in seven packs of five cards in each pack; and when all are placed, desire some person to select and mentally note any one of the cards dealt out, and to state in which pack it is situated. We will suppose the card selected is stated to be in the third pack of seven cards. Pick the cards up in order, row by row, and proceed to deal them out again in the same order as that in which they were picked up, but placing them this time in five packs of seven cards in each pack, placing one card alternately on each pack, and then again ask in which pack the selected card is to be found. The card selected should be the third card in the pack designated—that is to say, in the second dealing the card should be in the pack at the number corresponding with the number of the pack in which it was placed after the first deal. To confuse the spectators, the packs, after the first dealing, may be picked up out of the proper order, so long as the performer bears in mind in what order the pack containing the selected card is picked up. This trick can hardly claim to rank as a conjuring trick; it is nothing but a combination of cards, but it may fairly be shown in an amateur entertainment of parlour magic. As one merit of such combinations is their variety, we proceed with others of a similar nature, again enforcing the hint that no trick or combination should be shown twice in succession. If the above should be called for a second time, show instead one of the following.

TO TELL THE CARD THOUGHT OF WHEN THE NUMBER OF CARDS IS NOT FIXED, BUT WHEN IT IS SOME NUMBER DIVISIBLE BY THREE.

When a card has been mentally noted by one of the audience, proceed to deal out the cards in three heaps, with the faces of the cards turned uppermost, and so that the first card shall be first in the first heap, the second card first in the second heap, the third card first in the third heap, and so on. When the heaps are completed, ask to be informed in which heap the selected card will be found, and place that heap in the middle, and again deal out the cards as before. Again ascertain in which heap the card noted will be found, and once more let that heap be placed second among the heaps. Once again form the three heaps, and once again ask for the same information, making the same arrangement of the heaps. The card selected should then be the last card of the first half of the pack, if the whole number of the pack be even—that is to say, the twelfth in a pack of twenty-four, or the eighteenth in a pack of thirty-six. The arrangement is somewhat simpler when the number of cards is odd, as: fifteen, twenty-one, &c., for then the card selected should be the middle one of the heap in which it is found after the third time of dealing the cards.

TO TELL THE CARD THOUGHT OF BY ARRANGING THE CARDS IN A CIRCLE.

Arrange the first ten cards of any suit in the manner shown in the annexed diagram. Request some one present to think of one of the exposed cards and to touch some other card; desire also that the number of the card touched may be added to the number of cards exposed, namely, ten; and then ask him to count that sum backwards, beginning at the card touched, and reckoning that card as the number thought of. For example, suppose the three was the card thought of and the six was the card touched: six added to ten makes sixteen; and if commencing with three at the sixth card, and counting up to sixteen on the cards backwards—that is, three on the six, four on the five, five on the four, six on the three, seven on the two, and so on up to sixteen—it will be found that the counting will end on the three, the card thought of.

Cards in Circle Trick.