Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

If the choice falls on either of the outside cards, gather together all three, without showing them (the ace still being in the middle) and ask some one to blow on them. Then deal them out again in apparently the same order as before, but really deal the second for the first, so as to bring that card into the place of the card indicated. Then, after showing the two other cards as above directed, finally turn up the ace of diamonds, and show that it is the card originally chosen. TO CHANGE A DRAWN CARD INTO THE PORTRAITS OF SEVERAL OF THE COMPANY IN SUCCESSION.--For the purpose of this trick you will require a forcing pack of similar pattern to your ordinary pack, but consisting throughout of a single card, say the seven of clubs. You must also have half-a-dozen or more sevens of clubs of the same pattern, on the faces of which you must either draw or paste small caricature portraits, after the manner of Twelfth Night characters; which should be of such a kind as to excite laughter without causing offence. You arrange your pack beforehand as follows:--On the top place a fancy portrait, say of a young lady; then a seven of clubs, then a fancy portrait of a gentleman, then a seven of clubs; another fancy portrait of a lady, another seven of clubs, and so on; so that the first eight or ten cards of the pack shall consist of alternate portraits and sevens of clubs (the top card of all being a lady’s portrait), and the rest of the pack of sevens of clubs only.