Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE INSEPARABLE ACES.--This is really only another form of the last trick, though it differs a good deal in effect. You first pick out and exhibit on the table the four aces, and request some one to replace them on the pack, when you place three other cards secretly upon them. This you may either do by bringing three cards from the bottom by the pass, or you may, while the company’s attention is occupied in examining the aces, palm three cards from the top in the right hand, and, after the aces are replaced on the top, simply cover them with that hand, thereby bringing the three palmed cards upon them. You now say, “I am about to distribute these aces in different parts of the pack; pray observe that I do so fairly.” As you say this, you take off and hold up to the audience the four top cards, being the three indifferent cards with an ace at the bottom. You cannot, of course, exhibit them fanwise, as in the last trick, or the deception would be at once detected; but the spectators, seeing an ace at the bottom, and having no particular reason for suspecting otherwise, naturally believe that the cards you hold are really the four aces. Laying the four cards on the table, you distribute them, as in the last trick, in different parts of the pack; taking care, however, that the last card (which is the genuine ace), is placed among the three already at the top.