I believe I may safely claim that the device I am about to describe was,
until I disclosed it some months ago in the _Magazine of Magic_, an
absolute novelty. It consists in the preparation of one card of a pack
(or, better still, of a spare card, to be substituted at need for its
double), by rubbing one or other of its surfaces, shortly before it is
needed for use, with diachylon, in the solid form.
We will suppose, in the first instance, that the _back_ of the card is
so dealt with. The rubbing does not alter its appearance, but gives it a
thin coating of adhesive matter, and if another card is pressed against
the surface so treated, the two adhere, and for the time become, in
effect, one card only, viz., the one whose face is exposed, the other
having temporarily disappeared from the pack.
This renders possible many striking effects. To take an elementary
example, let us suppose that the old-fashioned flat card-box, or some
other appliance for magically producing a card, is loaded with, say,
a seven of diamonds. The corresponding card is forced on one of the
company, and taken back into the middle of the pack, on the top of the
prepared card. The performer does not disturb or tamper with the pack in
the smallest degree. He merely squares up the cards, and, pressing them
well together, hands them to be shuffled, meanwhile calling attention to
the card-box, which is shown apparently empty. He then asks the name of
the drawn card, announcing that it will at his command leave the pack and
find its way into the box.
He now counts off the cards, showing the face of each as he does so, and
leaving it exposed upon the table. The seven of diamonds has disappeared,
being in fact hidden behind the prepared card, which we will suppose to
be in this instance the queen of clubs.
Leaving the cards outspread upon the table, the performer opens the
card-box, and shows that the missing card has somehow found its way into
it.
In the hands of a novice, the trick might end at this point; but even a
novice may very well carry it a stage further. To do so, he will in the
first place replace the card in the box, in such a manner that it can be
again “vanished.” In gathering together the outspread cards, he takes
care to place the queen of clubs on top of the rest. As this, however,
is the double card, the actual top card is of course the missing seven
of diamonds. It is an easy matter, in handling the cards, to detach this
from the queen of clubs, and, after a little “talkee-talkee,” show that
it has left the box and returned to the pack.
The above would, however, be much too crude and elementary a proceeding
to commend itself to the expert. In the trick next to be described the
same expedient is employed after a more subtle fashion.