Explanation.—In the first place, a forced card must be chosen, in the manner described; then the pack must be placed in the spoon so that the chosen card may lean on a pin, bent in the form of a hook; this pin is fastened to a thread, and ascending through a pack, leans upon the upper end of the spoon; then it descends under the room, through the table. Thus arranged, the confederate cannot pull the thread without dragging along with it the hook and card, which causes it to be perceived as flying in the air. The thread slides upon the blunt edge of the spoon as easily as if it run in a pulley.
In order to place the cards in the spoon quick enough, that the spectators may perceive no preparation, care must be taken that another pack is presented dextrously on the table. The chosen card in the other, with the hook and thread, must be previously prepared as above described.
TO SHOW A CARD CHOSEN BY THE AUDIENCE IN A DARK ROOM.
Arrange the cards of a pack so as to name them all according to their positions after several changes. This is done in various ways, as explained in The Secret Out and the last few pages.
After the pack has been cut by different persons spread it out on the table and ask one of the company to select a card quite at random. Take up the pack, and in doing so divide it into two parcels, and place the one which preceded the drawn card below the other.
While pretending that you wish to convince the audience that the cards are of different suits, hold the pack in such a position that your accomplice in the next room can see which is the last card. Knowing, then, that the following one is the drawn card, he writes the name or draws the figure of it in black on a transparent screen in the adjoining room.
This screen is to be placed within an aperture in the wall, on withdrawing a curtain to which, the person who selected the card has but to look in to see the writing or picture of it “staring him in the face.”
The inner room should be quite dark, so that nothing but the writing is perceived.
THE DOUBLE CONFEDERATES.
Two accomplices are required. Each, however, supposes that he alone is in the secret. To the first accomplice, for instance, you say that the card to be noted is the king of hearts. You take this card from the pack, and give it to the second accomplice to hide somewhere. You then shuffle the cards, let Accomplice A shuffle them also, and then begin a conversation like the following: