The beholders, all the time thinking that they lay four aces on the table, are greatly deceived when the cards are turned up, and will wonder at the transformation.
TO TELL A SELECTED CARD, WITHOUT SEEING IT TILL YOU FIND IT IN THE PACK
As you hold the cards in your hand, let any one take a card out of the pack, and look at it; then take the card from them with your eyes shut, and put it at the bottom of the pack; then shuffle the cards till you know it is come to the bottom again: then putting the cards behind you, pretend you shuffled them behind you, but let your shuffling be only this; take off the uppermost card, and put it at the bottom, reckon that two; then take off another card, and reckon that three; then take off as many as you please from the top, and put them at the bottom, counting to yourself how many you take off: then bring the cards forth, and hold them with their faces towards you; then take off one by one, privately counting the number, and smell them, as though you found it out by your nose, till you come to the right card; then produce it, saying this is it: and they will wonder how you found it out.
TO NAME THE NUMBER OF CARDS THAT A PERSON SHALL TAKE OUT OF THE PACK.
To perform this recreation you must so arrange a piquet pack of cards that you can easily remember the order in which they are placed. Suppose, for example, that they are placed according to the words in the following line.
Seven aces, eight kings, nine queens, and ten knaves, and that every card be of a different suit, following each other in this order; spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds. Then the eight first cards will be the seven of spades, ace of clubs, eight of hearts, king of diamonds, nine of spades, queen of clubs, ten of hearts, and knave of diamonds; and so on.
You show that the cards are placed promiscuously, and then offer them with the backs upward, to any one, that he may draw what quantity he pleases; which, when he has done, you secretly look at the card that precedes, and that which follows those he has taken. After he has well regarded the cards, you take them from him, and putting them into different parts of the pack, shuffle them, or give them to him to shuffle. During which you recollect by the foregoing line all the cards he took out; and as you lay them down, one by one, you name each card.
THE CARD IN THE MIRROR.
Provide a mirror, either round or oval, the frame of which must be at least as wide as a card. The glass in the middle must be made to move in the two grooves, and so much of the quicksilver must be scraped off as is equal to the size of a common card. You will observe that the glass must likewise be wider than the distance between the frame by at least the width of a card.
Then paste over the part where the quicksilver is rubbed off, a piece of pasteboard, on which is a card, exactly fitting the space, which must at first be placed behind the frame.