Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Third Method.--Hold the card to be changed face downwards between the thumb and first and second fingers of the right hand, the thumb being above and the two fingers below the card. Hold the pack in the left hand, as if about to deal the cards, the card for which that first mentioned is to be changed being on the top. Bring the hands rapidly together, pushing the top card with the left thumb about an inch beyond the rest of the pack, and at the same moment place the card held in the right hand with a sliding motion upon the top of the pack. (See Fig. 18.) Both this card and the original top card (which is now second) will now be between the two fingers and thumb of the right hand. Press lightly on the top card with the left thumb to keep it back, and quickly draw away the right hand, pressing gently upwards with the two fingers on the face of the second card, which you will thereby draw away in place of the top card. If neatly done, the keenest eyesight cannot detect the substitution of the second card. Your only difficulty will be to find a colourable pretext for placing the card you hold on the top of the pack. This achieved, the rest is easy. The nature of the trick you are performing will frequently suggest a plausible excuse. A very successful plan is to boldly request the company to observe that you do not do that which you at the same moment actually do. “You will observe, ladies and gentlemen,” you remark, “that I do not, even for one moment, replace the card in the pack, but simply,” etc., etc. At the words “replace the card in the pack,” the hands are brought together, and make the change. The action, suiting the words, is taken by the audience as an indicative gesture only, and thus the change is effected under their very eyes without exciting the least suspicion. In this mode of making the change, you should aim at being easy and natural, rather than very rapid. The main movement (that which brings the hands together) is undisguised, but attributed to a fictitious motive; and the subsidiary movement of the fingers, which actually effects the change, is so slight as to be practically imperceptible.