The requirements for this trick consist of two complete packs of cards
and an extra card, which we will suppose to be the knave of diamonds. One
of the two packs, which we will call _A_, has on top a card made adhesive
at the back as above described, and its own knave of diamonds at the
bottom. The other pack, _B_, is wholly unprepared.
The first step is to offer pack _B_ to be shuffled, and when it is
returned to palm on to it the spare knave of diamonds, after which the
pack is left temporarily for the time being in view on the table.
The next step is to pick up pack _A_, and force from it the knave of
diamonds, receiving it back on top of the prepared card, passed to the
middle of the pack for its reception. Squaring up the pack and applying
the necessary pressure, the performer offers it to be shuffled, meanwhile
delivering himself to something like the following effect.
“Before going further, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to remember
exactly what has been done. A card has been chosen from this pack. It has
been put back again, the cards have been shuffled, and you can all bear
witness that I have not touched them since. Nobody knows, except the lady
who chose it, what card she chose. Whereabouts in the pack it may be at
this moment not one of us knows, even the lady herself. I can assure you
truthfully that _I_ don’t, but I propose, by force of magic, to compel
that card, whatever it may be, to leave that pack altogether, and pass
into the other one. Nay, more than that, I shall compel it to place
itself at any number in that pack you like to name. What shall we say?
Seventh? Good.
“Now please bear in mind that that pack, like the other, has just
been shuffled, and that I have not touched it since. It is therefore
manifestly impossible that I should know the position of any card in
it. Of course, as there is already a knave of diamonds in the pack, it
is just possible, though scarcely likely, that that card may have been
shuffled into the seventh place. We will see.”
He counts off cards from the top of the pack on to the table, _faces
down_, not exposing any card till he comes to the seventh, which he holds
up so that all may see it. “Now, Madam, is that your card? I don’t want
to know the name of it yet. It is not your card? I did not suppose it
was, for the chances were over fifty to one against it, but you never can
tell!”
He gathers up the cards counted off, and without disturbing their order,
replaces them on the top of the pack, thereby bringing the original top
card to the seventh place.
“Now please observe that I do not touch these cards again till the
miracle has actually happened. I will now ask you, madam, to be good
enough to name your card. The knave of diamonds, you say? That is all
right. Had you taken the knave of clubs, I should have feared for the
success of my experiment, for that knave always gives trouble, if he can;
but the knave of diamonds is a very gentlemanly card, and I have no doubt
that he will readily oblige. Now, Percy (perhaps you didn’t know his name
was Percy), I want you to leave the pack you are in, and place yourself
seventh in the other pack. Go at once, like a good boy. Start at the top,
and go straight down. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!
“I should think he has arrived by this time. Let us make sure first,
though, whether he has really left the other pack.”
Picking up pack _A_, he counts the cards slowly, not looking at them
himself, but showing the face of each before laying it on the table.
“Stop me, please, if you see the knave of diamonds.” He counts, “one,
two, three, four,” and so on to the end. “Fifty-one cards only! Then
there is one card missing, and as you have not seen the knave of
diamonds, and as all the other cards are here, it is plain that it is he
who has left the pack. We have still to find out whether he has obeyed
orders, and gone over to the other pack. You wished him to place himself
seventh, I think. I won’t touch the cards myself. Will some gentleman
come forward, and count them off for me?” (This is done.) “The seventh
card is really the knave of diamonds, is it not?
“But, you may say, this might be the knave properly belonging to this
pack. Please look through the pack, sir, and if there has been no
deception you will find the proper knave in some other part of it. You
have found the other knave? Then you will admit that that proves clearly
that this first one is the identical card the lady drew.”[3]
It would be easy to give other combinations dependent on the use of the
adhesive principle, but these may safely be left to the ingenuity of
the reader. If the face, instead of the back, of a given card be treated
with the adhesive, that card will itself disappear from the pack. By
due adjustment two adhering cards may (the one slightly overlapping the
other) be made to form a temporary long or wide card.
[3] A somewhat more elaborate trick of mine on the same principle (_The
Elusive Card_) will be found described in the _Magazine of Magic_, Vol.
II, pp. 13, 47.