Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

I’m afraid you are sadly wanting in faith, but as I can’t perform the trick, for the sake of my own reputation, until you are thoroughly convinced, I will show you the cards once more.” This you do, and again replace them on the pack, but before doing so, slip the little finger of the left hand under the top card of the pack. Again take off the aces with the finger and thumb of the right hand, carrying with them at the same time this top card. Then with a careless gesture of the right hand toward the audience, so as to show them the face of the undermost card (the one you have just added), you continue, “I really can’t imagine what makes you so incredulous. Here are the aces” (you replace the five cards on the pack)--“I take them one by one, so, and place them on the table. Surely there is no possibility of sleight-of-hand here. Are you all satisfied that these are really the aces now?” The audience having noted, as you intended them to do, that the fifth or bottom card was not an ace, naturally conclude that other cards have been by some means substituted for the aces, and when you ask the question for the last time, you are met by a general shout of “No!” You say, with an injured expression, “Really, ladies and gentlemen, if you are all such unbelievers, I may as well retire at once. I should hope that, at least, you will have the grace to apologize for your unfounded suspicions.” Then, turning to the person assisting you, you continue, “Sir, as every act of mine appears to be an object of suspicion, perhaps you will kindly show the company that those are the aces, and replace them yourself on the top of the pack.”