TO DIVIDE THE RED CARDS FROM THE BLACK BY A SINGLE CUT OF THE PACK.
Screw a pack of cards up tightly in a vice, and shave the edges so as to make the cards narrower at one end than at the other. You then arrange these cards in such a manner that the broad ends of the black cards lie all in one direction, and the broad ends of the red cards in the contrary direction. Now let any of the company shuffle it and return it to you. You then ask in which hand they wish the red, and in which the black cards to appear. On receiving a reply, you grasp the pack firmly at both ends, with both hands, and draw them apart, when you will have in each hand those cards whose broad ends lay in its direction. Sometimes you will have to draw the card several times before you can get them entirely separated.
Observe.—This recreation should not be repeated, unless you have another pack of cards to adroitly substitute for the former, in which you may separate the pictured cards from the others, they being prepared for that purpose; which will afford a fresh surprise. You may also write on a number of blank cards certain letters or words that form a question, and on others the answer.
THE CARD OF ONE COLOUR FOUND IN A PACK OF THE OTHER.
Put all the red cards in one heap, and all the black cards in the other. One of these packs you conceal in your pocket. You let any person draw a card from the other pack, and while he is examining the card, substitute the pack in your pocket for the one you hold in your hand. Let him place his card in the pack you have taken from your pocket, and shuffle as much as he pleases. On receiving back the pack, you will at once recognize the card he has drawn by the difference of colour.
TO IMPALE A CARD.
Take any card with a pip in the middle—as an ace, five, nine, &c., and thrust through the centre a short tack, of which the head is flat and broad, and the point made very sharp.
At the conclusion of a trick with a borrowed card like the one prepared as above, juggle the former away, and bring the other to the bottom of the pack, the tack point outwards. On hurling the pack horizontally against a door or other wood-work, the pack will act like a solid body and drive the nail in fast, when the chosen card will be displayed, while the others fall to the floor.
CARDS TOLD BY POETICAL INSPIRATION.
Lay sixteen cards on the table in four rows of four each, face up.