A variety of this trick is sometimes practised with one card only, say the ace of spades, over which a heart is slightly pasted. After showing the card to some person, let him hold one end of it, face downwards, and while he is being amused with the "patter" of the performer who holds the other end of the card, the heart is slipped off. Then, placing the card on the table, request that it may be covered with the hand; knock under the table and command the heart to turn into a spade.
TO TELL THE NUMBER OF CARDS BY THEIR WEIGHT.
Take up a parcel of cards, say forty, among which insert two long cards; let the first long card be, for example, the fifteenth, and the other the twenty-sixth from the top. Seem to shuffle the cards, and then, cutting them at the first long card, poise those cut off in the left hand, and say, "There should be fifteen cards here." Cut them again at the second long card, and say, "There are here only eleven cards." Then holding up the remainder, say, "Here are fourteen cards." Let the different heaps be then counted, to satisfy the audience as to the accuracy of the performer's judgment.
TO DISCOVER A CARD DRAWN BY THE THROW OF A DIE.
Prepare a pack of thirty-six cards, in which six different cards are contained six times. Dispose these cards in such a manner that each of the six different cards shall follow each other, and let the last of each suit be a long card. The cards being thus disposed, it follows that if they are divided into six parcels by cutting at each of the long cards, these parcels will all consist of similar cards. Let some person draw a card from the pack, and let him replace it in the parcel from whence it was drawn, by dexterously offering that pack. Should he succeed in placing it elsewhere, bring it, by making the pass, into its proper position. Cut the cards several times, so that a long card may be always at the bottom. Divide the cards in this manner into six heaps, and giving a die to the person who drew the card, tell him that the number he throws shall indicate the parcel in which is the card he drew, which necessarily follows. The performer should place the cards in his pocket immediately after completing the trick, and be prepared with another pack to show should any one request to be allowed to examine the cards.
Many other card tricks might be given that are of a more complicated nature than the above, but those selected are thoroughly simple and easy, and of sufficient variety to enable an amateur performer to pass from one to another without ever being reduced to the necessity of repetition.
CONJURING WITH AND WITHOUT SPECIAL APPARATUS.
THE TRANSPOSABLE MONEY.