This item may be described, if preferred, as “Knavish Tricks.”
_Requirements._ Card mat loaded with knaves of spades, hearts and
diamonds, taken from the pack in use. Knave of clubs on top of pack.
_Presentation._ Advance, palming off the knave of clubs, and offer pack
to be shuffled. When it is returned, force the knave on one of the
company. Borrow a hat, and after showing that it is empty, place it,
crown downwards, on the table. Receive back the drawn card upon the mat,
remarking that you will place it in the hat, which you do accordingly,
the other three knaves going in with it. Then, assuming a worried
expression, deliver patter to something like the following effect.
“I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall not be able to show
you the experiment I had intended. I have a telepathic nerve in my left
thumb, a sort of private fire alarm, only more so, which always gives me
warning when things are going wrong, and I feel it now. If you have read
‘Macbeth,’ you will remember that one of the witches says:
‘By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.’
“I have often wondered whether that old lady could have been a sort
of great-great-great grandmother of mine. Magic certainly runs in the
family, and we may have inherited it from her. Anyhow, I have just the
same sort of sensation myself. Unfortunately, in my case the warning is
incomplete. I dare say you will remember that story (I rather think it’s
in Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’), about Little Queen Cole. Her
Majesty had the misfortune to develop a mole upon her nose, and King Cole
was worried about it. He consulted Old Moore and Zadkiel, and all the
leading astrologers of the day, but all they could tell him was
‘A mole upon the face
Shows that something will take place,
But not what that something will be.’
That’s just my case. My prophetic thumb merely tells me that something is
wrong, but doesn’t say what. It may be drains, or the house on fire, or
something in the county court. You never can tell!
“Of course it’s nothing of that sort now. In the present case it has no
doubt something to do with the experiment I want to show you. You chose
your card quite freely, did you not, Madam? It never matters to me in the
least what card is chosen, with the exception of one particular card,
which is a holy terror. May I ask if you happened to draw the knave of
clubs? Yes? I feared as much. The knave of clubs is the bane of my life.
He is always endeavouring to get himself chosen, and then he does his
best to upset my arrangements. And the worst of it is, he leads away the
other three knaves. The four of them form a secret society, which they
call ‘The cheerful blackguards.’ The knave of clubs is the president, and
the rest have to do just as he tells them. He communicates with them by
means of a sort of wireless telegraphy, and when he calls they go to him
at once.” (You here make the “click.”) “Did you hear that sound? That’s
his call now, despatched by wireless from the hat to the very middle of
the pack. I have no doubt that we shall find that the other three knaves
have already left it, and joined him in the hat.” (Make believe to look
over the pack, and hand it to a spectator.) “Yes! just as I thought: they
are all gone.” (To a spectator.) “See for yourself, sir. Not a single
knave left. And here they all are, in the hat.” (Whence they are produced
accordingly.)
As the “click” in some cases adds much to the effect of a trick, and as
it may to some readers be an unfamiliar sleight, I may pause to explain
that it is executed as follows: Take the pack in either hand, held
upright between forefinger and thumb, a little more than halfway down,
with the middle finger curled up behind it as in Fig. 13. With the tip
of the third finger bend back the extreme bottom corners of the last
half dozen or so of the cards, allowing them to escape again smartly.
The sound made by the corners in springing back again constitutes
the “click.” It needs a little practice, but if the cards are held
properly, and the sleight worked smartly, the sound will be audible at a
considerable distance, whilst the movement of the finger producing it is
quite invisible to the spectators.
[Illustration: FIG. 13]
But we have not yet done with our trick. You may resume as follows:
“I will give you a further illustration of what I have to put up with
from the knaves. I should like you to be satisfied that I have nothing
to do with their bad behaviour.” (You palm off the three top cards, and
with the same hand offer the four knaves to a spectator.) “Will you, sir,
make sure that these really are the four knaves, and then place them here
on the top of the pack,”--offered with the left hand. When the knaves
have been laid upon it, you transfer it to the opposite hand, and palm on
to them the three concealed cards, but immediately slide them off again,
with the uppermost of the four knaves beneath them. You hold them up in a
careless way, so that the audience, catching sight of this card, may be
confirmed in the belief that the cards exhibited in the right hand are
really the four knaves.
“Here we have the four knaves, at present all together. I will now
distribute them in different parts of the pack, as far apart as possible.
One here, nearly at the bottom, one a little higher up, another about
the middle, and this last” (you show it carelessly), “close to the top.”
(This, being a genuine knave, must be placed among the other knaves.)
“They could hardly be placed farther apart than that: but to make things
a little more difficult for them, I will ask some lady to cut the cards.”
This done, and the cards handed back to you, you repeat the click.
“There it is again: the wireless signal. You can all bear witness that
I have nothing to do with the matter. Now, Sir, will you kindly examine
the pack, and unless I am much mistaken, you will find that the other
three knaves have answered Black Jack’s call, and that the four cheerful
blackguards have got together again, in which case, with your permission,
I will leave them severely alone, and try some other experiment.”
The expert will recognise this last effect as a “chestnut” among card
tricks, but it is none the worse on that account, and it forms a
particularly appropriate sequel to the principal trick.
If the performer possesses the “flower-pot,” one of these will naturally
be used in place of the hat.