Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Some fun may also be created as follows:--You name, in the first instance, a wrong card--say the seven of hearts. On being told that that was not the card thought of, you affect surprise, and inquire what the card thought of was. You are told, let us say, the king of hearts. “Ah,” you remark, “that settles it; I felt sure you were mistaken. You could not possibly have seen the king of hearts, for you have been sitting on that card all the evening. Will you oblige me by standing up for a moment,” and, on the request being complied with, you apparently take the card (which you have already palmed) from off the chair on which the person has been sitting. The more shrewd of the company may conjecture that you intentionally named a wrong card in order to heighten the effect of the trick; but a fair proportion will always be found to credit your assertion, and will believe that the victim had really, by some glamour on your part, been induced to imagine he saw a card which he was actually sitting on. This trick is frequently performed with the whole thirty-two cards of the piquet pack. The process and result are the same, save that the card thought of must be one of the twenty-seven cards first dealt. The chances are greatly against one of the last five cards being the card thought of, but in such an event the trick would break down, as it would in that case require four deals instead of three to bring the chosen card to the top of the pack.