Take the four kings and two knaves out of a pack of cards, and spread the kings only before the audience, in order that it may be seen that they are the kings, at the same time hiding the two knaves between the third and fourth king; then place the six cards at the bottom of the whole pack, face downwards, on the table. Lift up the pack and remove the bottom card, which will be the fourth king; let it be seen that it is a king, and place it on the top of the pack. Take the next two cards, which will be the knaves, carefully keeping them from being seen, and one by one place them in different positions in the pack. This arrangement will leave one king at the top of the pack and three kings at the bottom, but as the kings only have been shown, it will appear as though there was one king at the top, one at the bottom, and the other two in different positions in the pack. Let any one present cut the cards, and the performer, while placing the bottom cut on the top, may say that he is now, without apparently altering the relative position of any of the cards, going to bring the four kings together into the middle of the pack. Make a few conjuring passes and utter some conjuring mumblings over the pack, hand it to any person in the audience, and announce the trick as completed. The four kings will be found together as promised.
THE TURNOVER.
The turnover is a pretty sleight, and forms an appropriate termination to some of the before described tricks, in which the card selected by one of the audience is found and exposed by the performer. When the card selected has been ascertained let it be brought to the top of the pack, and held there with its edge somewhat pushed over the remaining cards, which are to be held with their edges perfectly even. If when so placed the whole pack is suddenly dropped out of the hand, the cards, all excepting the top card, will fall on their faces, while the projection of the top card, finding resistance in the air as it falls should, during its descent, turn over and fall face upwards.
TO TELL THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PIPS SHOWN AT THE BOTTOM OF PACKS MADE UP IN A CERTAIN MANNER.
Take the whole pack of fifty-two cards, and let them be well shuffled by as many persons as care to do so. Explain that if during your absence any one present will deal out the cards, faces downwards, into packs made up according to instructions, you will upon your return tell the aggregate number of pips shown on the bottom cards of the packs, the court cards being considered as equal to ten pips and the ace as equal to one pip. The dealing has to be done in this way: Take the top card, and count it as the number shown upon its face; place upon it then sufficient cards to make that number up to twelve; then take the next card, and proceed in the same way, and so on until all are dealt out, or until the remaining cards are insufficient in number to make up twelve. The remaining cards must be handed to the performer. To ascertain the number of pips on the bottom cards, the performer counts the number of packs on the table, from that number deducts four, multiplies the remaining number of packs by thirteen, and adds to the result the number of cards remaining which were insufficient to make up twelve; the number so obtained will be found to be equal to the aggregate of the pips on the bottom cards of the packs. This counting will, of course, be done with many apparently intricate calculations, founded upon the pips of the cards in the performer's hand combined with the packs on the table. Below is an illustration of the trick, which will perhaps make the above more intelligible. Suppose (1) a seven card is first turned out: it will be placed on the table, with five cards on the top of it to make up twelve; (2) a court card next, counting ten, has two cards placed upon it; (3) a two has ten cards placed over it; (4) a nine requires three more cards, or, in all, four to form the pack; (5) a five requires seven more cards; (6) a three requires nine additional cards; (7) an eight card requires four; (8) a court card and two cards, leaving two cards remaining.
The table annexed will show the pips on the bottom cards of the respective packs, with the number of cards in each pack:—
| Bottom Card | Number of Cards | |
| Counts | in Pack. | |
| 1st pack | 7 | 6 |
| 2nd „ (Court Card) | 10 | 3 |
| 3rd „ | 2 | 11 |
| 4th „ | 9 | 4 |
| 5th „ | 5 | 8 |
| 6th „ | 3 | 10 |
| 7th „ | 8 | 5 |
| 8th „ | 10 | 3 |
| 54 | 50 |
This arrangement shows eight packs, with two cards over; following the rule given, deduct four packs from the number of packs, multiply the remainder by thirteen, add two (the cards remaining), and the result will be 54, the aggregate number of pips on the bottom cards; thus: 8-4=4×13=52+2=54.
TO ASCERTAIN THE NUMBER OF PIPS ON UNSEEN CARDS.
In these tricks aces count as eleven instead of as one, court cards count as ten. The piquet pack of thirty-two cards only must be used for the first method, the ordinary pack of fifty-two for the second method.