Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

We have described the trick as performed with the aces, but the effect will, of course, be the same with four kings, four queens, or any other four similar cards. HAVING PLACED THE FOUR ACES IN DIFFERENT POSITIONS IN THE PACK, TO MAKE THE TWO BLACK CHANGE PLACES WITH THE TWO RED ONES, AND FINALLY TO BRING ALL FOUR TOGETHER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK.--This trick may immediately follow that last described. Again selecting the four aces (or such other four cards as you used for the last trick), and placing them on the table, take the two red ones, and opening the pack bookwise in the left hand, ostentatiously place them in the middle, at the same time secretly slipping your little finger between them. Ask the audience to particularly notice which of the aces are placed in the middle, and which at top and bottom. Next place one of the black aces on the top, and then turning over the pack by extending your left hand, place the remaining black ace at the bottom. As you again turn over the pack to its former position, make the pass, which the movement of the pack in turning over in the hand will be found to facilitate. The two halves of the pack having now changed places, the aces will, naturally, have changed their positions also, the two black ones now being in the middle, and the two red ones at top and bottom; but it would be very indiscreet to allow the audience to know that this is already the case. As has been already mentioned, when a given change has taken or is about to take place, you should always seek to mislead the spectators as to the time of the change, as they are thereby the less likely to detect the mode in which it is effected. In accordance with this principle, you should endeavour in the present case to impress firmly upon the minds of your audience that the cards are as they have seen you place them; and for that purpose it is well to ask some one to say over again, for the general satisfaction, in what parts of the pack the four aces are.