Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

TO ALLOW A PERSON TO THINK OF A CARD, AND TO MAKE THAT CARD APPEAR AT SUCH NUMBER IN THE PACK AS ANOTHER PERSON SHALL NAME.--Allow the pack to be shuffled and cut as freely as the company please. When they are fully satisfied that the cards are well mixed, offer the pack to any of the spectators, and request him to look over the cards, and think of any one, and to remember the number at which it stands in the pack, reckoning from the bottom card upwards. You then remark, “Ladies and gentlemen, you will take particular notice that I have not asked a single question, and yet I already know the card; and if anyone will kindly indicate the place in the pack at which you desire it to appear, I will at once cause it to take that position. I must only ask that, by arrangement between yourselves, you will make the number at which the card is to appear higher than that which it originally held.” We will suppose that the audience decide that the card shall appear at number 22. Carelessly remark, “It is not even necessary for me to see the cards.” So saying, hold the pack under the table, and rapidly count off twenty-two cards from the bottom of the pack, and place them on the top.[C] You then continue, “Having already placed the card thought of in the desired position, I may now, without suspicion, ask for the original number of the card, as I shall commence my counting with that number.” We will suppose you are told the card was originally number 10. You begin to count from the top of the pack, calling the first card 10, the next 11, and so on. When you come to 22, the number appointed, you say, “If I have kept my promise, this should be the card you thought of. To avoid the suspicion of confederacy, will you please say, before I turn it over, what your card was.” The card being named, you turn it up, and show that it is the right one.