A

Deck of Cards.
vwv
Textbook
Of
Advanced Card Magic
In Three Parts
by
R. P.
Prague.
Publisher of the Royal and Imperial Court Printing Ofce of Gottlieb Haases Sons
1853.
Translators Note
Among the things that a good translation can bring out of a text are the style
and language of an author. In this case, the writers use of technical terms
in card conjuring varies greatly, refecting nineteenth-century usage as well
as his personal word choices. For example, he uses at various times Paquet,
Theile and Abtheilung for what we would call a packet in English. For the
verbal part of the magicians presentation, he ofen uses simply Gesprch
(talk, speech, conversation), and only once or twice Suada, a more technical
term for pater used at that time.
I have tried to preserve the original word choices and style as much as possi-
ble to capture the favor of the original, making use of brackets and footnotes
where necessary for explanations. However, in the description of the pass and
other sleights, for greater clarity and readability, the presentation has been
adapted slightly to the modern usage among conjurers while preserving the
authors original technique exactly.
My heartfelt thanks to Ronald Wohl and Richard Hatch for their technical
help with the translation.
Lori Pieper

This edition of 75 copies has been prepared for the
special occassion of the 32nd Escorial.
2005 The Conjuring Arts Research Center
11 West 30th, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 594-1033
3
Foreword
A deck of cards is a series of numbers and pictures, which are arranged in such a simple or-
der that they have already had hurled at them a thousand times, just like the harmless numbers of the
lotery, the words: Ah, they are just silly cards! And yet they deserve this accusation much less than
do the dead numbers of the lotery.
These ffy-two cards (I am speaking of a French deck), form a closed society, which like any
other, has its own social order; there is only one thing this society can be accused of: that it follows the
law of the jungle, that might makes right, where the weaker are always trumped by those of higher
rank. But we can forgive this if we recall the period in which this society was formed.
People have writen about most of the societies that have existed up to now, so why not the
relationships of the society of a deck of cards as well? In fact, shouldnt it be illuminated in a more
charming form than has been done up to now in many more or less dry pamphlets and books on
games, that throw the already old cloak of magic and sorcery over something so simple, and contain
card tricks with which you would fnd it difcult to entertain a refned gathering?
More than a hundred previously completely unknown entertaining card tricks,
1
is how
the title announces the contents; when we read it, we fnd to our galling disappointment, that the
old tune, already played a thousand times is struck up again, and scarcely forty pieces, and certainly
none of them a piece of art.
These books say: perform the pass, or quickly bring the botom card to the top; but when
it comes to describing how this can be cleverly executed, they are silent.
In the following pages, I will demonstrate to the friendly reader who will make the efort
to spend a few hours on them a series of card tricks, which, with a few exceptions, have never been
performed anywhere, for they have been newly invented. Many of the efects have till now only been
seen at public performances.
2

To entertain a gathering with pieces of apparatus is certainly very charming, yet they entail
signifcant expense, transporting them creates many inconveniences and then fnally how easily
such a machine will fail to work and leave you stranded!
3
You can get a deck of cards anywhere, and anyone who makes all the sleights established in
my introduction his own cannot be embarrassed by anything, and will always perform with unself-
conscious ease and elegance.
A litle patience, and a bit of manly perseverance, will easily lead, through all the difculties
which at any rate only exist in appearance to an enjoyable result.
I have completely lef out of my pages all the so-called puzzle tricks found in the other litle
works, and the litle jests that even at a distance betray their origin. On the subject of sympathetic
inks, which such books use to deceptively infate the number of tricks as much as possible, the discus-
sion here is limited to only to the most necessary things, so that my amiable reader who has made an
1 It would be interesting to know if this is the actual title or subtitle of a known publication from this period, which
might shed some information on the identity of the author of this work. (R. Hatch).
2 This comment implies that the author has given public (as opposed merely to private) performances. (R. Hatch).
3 In Hofzinsers published reviews of Bosco (1846 & 1848), Herrmann (1851) and Frikell (1856), he lauds each mans
possession of a wonderful machinetheir gifed ten fngers. This echoes to a certain extent the sentiment expressed here. (R.
Hatch).
4
efort to follow my instructions will make a very welcome appearance in the select company to which
it will be my pleasure to introduce him, an appearance which will be watched with delight. That the
reader bear in mind the great words: Nothing is ever perfect! is the one indulgence requested by
The Author
The beginning of January, 1853.
5
Contents
Foreword 3
Introduction 8
Sec. I The Pass 8
a) Pass with both hands 8
b) Pass with one hand 9
c) Pass with three fngers 10
d) The Secret Turnover of the deck 10
e) One-card Pass with Two Hand 10
f) One-card Pass with One Hand 11
Sec. 2 The Force 11
Sec. 3 False Shufes 12
Shufe a 13
Shufe b 13
Shufe c 14
Shufe d 14
Sec. 4. The Set-up Deck 14
Set-up a 15
Set-up b 17
Sec 5. On Prepared Decks and Cards 18
Practical Advice. 19
Part I
1. The Telltale Cards 21
2. The Disappearing Face Cards 22
3. A Scene from Life 23
4. The Magic Hat 25
5. Continuation of the Preceding 26
6. The Leter 27
7. The Enchanted King of Clubs 29
8. The Scales 30
9. The Card that Transforms Itself 31
10. Sympathy of the Cards and Dice 31
11. Continuation of the Preceding 32
12. The Exchange of Suits 33
13. The Prophetic Billets 34
14. As You Command 35
15. The Enchanted Candle 35
Part 1: The Quick Arithmetic 35
Part 2: The Candle 35
16. The Cadmus Cards 37
17. The Best Sleight 38
18. The Double Exchange, or the Incomprehensible Mystery 39
19. The Baby Chick in the Egg 41
20 The Bonbons 42
21 The Non Plus Ultra 43
6
Part Two
1. The Friendship of the Cards 46
2. The Quick Obedience 46
3. The Magnetic Cards 47
4. The Quickly Found Cards 48
5. The Remaining Card 48
6. The Quick Transformation 49
7. The Fine Sense of Touch 50
8. The Stubborn Card 51
9. The Litle Magic Thumb 51
10. The Granted Wish 52
11. The Lucky Throw 52
12. Card Mathematics 53
13. Correct Guess 54
14. Continuation of the Preceding 54
15. The Strange Subtraction 55
16. Efective Pressure 56
17. The Obedient Packets 56
18. Touch 57
19. With the Help of a Needle 57
20. Vice Versa 58
21. True Devotion 58
22. Echapp [French=escape] 59
23. The Card Factory 59
24. In Flight 60
25. Predestination 60
Part Three
1. The Transparent Cards 62
2. A Memory Trick 62
3. The Last Card 63
4. Which Card in Sequence? 63
5. The Pre-Determined Number 64
6. Quickly Found 64
7. In Rows 64
8. Something Similar 65
9. The Granted Requests 66
10. The Remaining Card 66
11. Under the Handkerchief 67
12. The Stubborn Card 67
13. The Litle Magic Thumb 67
14. The Lucky Throw 67
15. Efective Pressure 67
16. With the Help of a Needle 67
17. In Flight 67
18. As You Command 68
19. The Best Sleight 68
20. Card Arithmetic 68
21. Puting Down Cards 68
7
22. The Nameless Card 68
23. The Janus Cards 68
24. The Use of a Deck Set up According to
Section 4 for Several Simple Card Tricks 69
25.-1. The Telltale Cards 69
26.-2. The Right Cut 69
27.-3. Guessing the Card Names 69
28.-4. The Ever-Recurring Card 69
29. The Use of Prepared Decks 70
30.-1. The Reliable Cards 70
31.-2. Quick Granting of Requests 70
32.-3. Guessing the Suit 70
32. Conical Deck 71
33.-1. Some Instructions 71
34.-2. Incomprehensible Speed 72
35. You Cant Lose a Trick 72
A Few Remarks on the Use of Sympathetic Inks 74
8
Introduction
All the sleights, shufes and set-ups here are dealt with in paragraphs, the sub-sections are
designated with the leters a, b, c, etc., and fnally, there follow a few words on prepared decks and
cards, as well as several practical pieces of advice.
Section 1. The Pass
There are two ways to do the simple pass.
a) the pass with two hands
b) the pass with one hand
However, insofar as the pass is called the turn or the rotation, the passes also include:
c) The pass with three fngers
d) The secret turnover of the deck
e) The one-card pass with two hands
f) The one-card pass with one hand
The principal prerequisite for anything at all beyond the simplest card tricks is the pass.
a) The Pass with Two Hands
The deck is held face down in the lef hand; the right hand cuts of a packet, and the lef litle
fnger is placed on the remaining packet, while the other lef
fngers are extended. Fig. I.
Place the right hand packet on the lef litle fnger; grasping
the upper packet with the other three lef fngers and lef
thumb on top, while the lower packet is grasped between
the right middle and ring fngers at the outer end, and right
thumb at the inner end, resulting in the position of the two
hands in Fig. II.
From this position, the lef index,
middle and ring fngers pull the top
packet just past the edge of the botom packet and then under it without ex-
tending those fngers, and the deck is then held squared in the lef hand; and
with this, the pass is completed.
This is the procedure for learning the pass, in which you must take
special care that only the above-mentioned three fngers execute the movement; all the others how-
ever, remain at rest. If you perform the pass several times in succession for practice, you will need to
bring the litle fnger between the two packets again only while you are pulling back the top packet,
and you maintain the position of the hands sketched in Fig. II.
With the pass, however, as with the rest of the sleights, the beginner should not be tempted to
want to do it quickly right away; this way everything will be ruined it is beter to do it a few hun-
dred times more, for it will yield a beter result.
When you use this sleight, a packet is cut with the middle and ring fnger and thumb of the
right hand, the card taken by the person in question is placed on top of the botom packet, and now
9
the litle fnger is quickly put between this card and the upper packet which goes on top of it; now the
pass is executed, afer which the inserted card lies on top.
b) The Pass with One Hand.
The pass with one hand is somewhat more difcult and in and of itself is already a trick.
Only a few people are familiar with this pass, and indeed, only with one kind, which I cite here as b.
1. I will, however, deal with a much easier method under b. 2.
In b. 1., the deck is separated with the ring fnger of the lef hand, so
that it is divided into two packets, with the ring fnger lying between them. The
remaining fngers of the lef hand lie closed on the top packet, which we will
designate as 1, so that the position of the fngers is that of Fig. III.
Now the thumb is pointed up, and the index, middle and litle fngers pull
the top packet sharply back to the edge of the botom packet, which is pushed
somewhat upwards with the thumb over and on top of the upper packet,
which is being pushed inwards from below. Figure IV. With this, the pass has
been performed.
During practical use, you have one packet of the deck in your right hand.
You have the chosen card placed on the packet located in your lef hand, close
the deck and while you are closing it, put your ring fnger between the two packets. Now, during a
suitable speech, in which you especially make people aware that you are no longer touching the deck,
you let your lef hand drop to your side, and as you do so, fnd an opportunity to execute the pass.
If you have to bring a card already located on top of the deck to the middle with one hand,
you perform the pass according to the instructions give above and afer the pass, put your ring fnger
between the two sections.
I must confess that this pass is somewhat difcult and I say to the beginner in advance that he
will let some of the cards fall to the ground a hundred times before it succeeds. But just have patience,
and it will work in the end. If, however, this is not agreeable, I have here a easier method, for which,
however, there is a condition.
b. 2. The deck lies as usual in the lef hand. Now the thumb of the
same hand
is stretched over and across the deck, and raises one packet onto the right
edge high enough that the frst joint of the middle and ring fngers has
room to bend inward over the botom packet, while the frst joints of the
ring and litle fngers support this packet with their knuckles. Fig. V.
Now these two knuckles press the botom
packet upwards until it can be pushed across and over the top packet. Fig.
VI.
At the moment depicted in this fgure, the thumb lets the upper
packet fall onto the hand, while the remaining four fngers push the bot-
tom packet over and are closed on it.
This method is quite imperceptible to the eye and also much easier to learn. The condition
for it is having a wide card in the deck, and when I come to speak of this card, which belongs to the
preparation, I will deal with the execution of this pass.
10
c) The Pass with Three Fingers
This is incorrectly called a pass, yet with a clever execution it is a feat of speed that is worthy
of astonishment.
You turn the back card of the deck over unnoticed, so that it has the face side towards you,
and while you hold the face side of the deck (not that of the turned-around card) towards the specta-
tors, you take the deck on the right edge with the middle fnger, on the lef with the thumb, and on
top with the index fnger of the right hand. Fig. VII. The ring and litle fnger remain closed on the
middle fnger.
Now while you make two circles in the air downwards from the right to the lef and
back up, and in addition, count rather slowly, one, two three, you have time to turn the
deck around between the fngers by a quick pressure, where the reversed card then ap-
pears, and you have performed what appears to be one of the most difcult passes, but in
reality was only a simple turning of the deck. The audience of a large city, before which
this pass was performed by one of the most skillful conjurers, was astonished at it.
To the passes also belong:
d) The Secret Turnover of the Deck
All the books dealing with card tricks state that for this trick, afer you divide the deck in two
packets, and turn it so that the face sides are opposite each other, you put it crosswise over your fn-
gers, have the chosen card placed on top, close your hand, and then show the top card again, where
the earlier card now appears to have been changed into another one.
In my opinion, with this method, it will not cost the spectators much efort to go behind the
deception; for earlier the deck was lying crosswise over the fngers, and now it is lying in the palm of
your hand.
The following method is much more certain and with only a litle practice is imperceptible
even to a sharply observant eye.
You take the deck face down in your lef hand, thumb to the right, the remaining four fngers
to the lef, lying closed over [it], afer you have previously executed the half-pass imperceptibly, either
with both hands or with only one hand, through which the two halves face each other. Now, while
you lower your hand very slightly to your side, and turn toward a person, you press quickly upwards
with your thumb until the fngers are against [the right side of] the deck. The position of the deck
now appears just as earlier, yet the previously looked-at top card is found on the botom, although
the spectator thinks he is looking at the same card.
With a litle practice, this movement can be done so quickly that you can execute it before a
persons eyes, and he will only notice a slight tremor of the hand. I will speak about its use when I
come to the explanation of the corresponding trick.
Now we come to another variety of the pass, namely the one-card pass, and this includes
e) The One-card Pass with Two Hands
11
This sleight is not in any of the books that have appeared up to now and are followed here,
and yet it is such an essential requirement for an easy and quick execution of the card trick that it
stands in the closest relationship with the pass properly speaking, and to the forcing of the cards
which follows below the key to the most charming pieces.
The deck is held face down in the lef hand as usual, the right hand, as stated in a), is curved
over it and covers it. Now during the speech, the top card will quickly be pulled back under the deck
with the closed four fngers, during which, however, you must avoid any sound.
The main use for this is that you can look at the botom card during the shufe, or in another
imperceptible way which presents itself, and while you let your hand fall, or turn to someone, you
quickly pass the botom card, through which you now have the card on top, from where, in posses-
sion of all the sleights ofered in these pages, you can put it back anywhere in the deck and use it in
various ways.
I especially recommend learning this kind of pass. When it is practiced, each willing reader
will be convinced how benefcial it is.
f) The One-card Pass with One Hand
This sleight is completely new, and since it is very easy, all the more practical, since you can
execute it completely unnoticed with one hand, while the spectators atention can be guided to some-
thing else though speech and the right hand, and the lef just as casually hangs at your side.
For this pass, you have the deck face down in your lef hand, and the card with which you
will perform the trick is brought on top of the deck through the pass given in a) or b).
You now casually let your lef hand fall slightly down to your lef side, then with your
thumb, through two quick pushes, one afer another, bring the top card across to the right and indeed
so far, that the frst joint of the index fnger can grasp it on the back side, and with the help of the
middle fnger on which the remaining fngers close, you can bring it to the botom of the deck by one
quick pull down and to the right. For greater clarity, in Figure VIII below, the middle, ring and litle
fnger, which in the drawing are hidden by the card lying on top of them, are shown with doted
lines.
With some practice this pass can be performed very quickly and can
be used for frequent exchanges and transformations.
The use of this sleight will follow in the explanation of the tricks.
Section 2. The [Classic] Force
Forcing cards, or coercing someone to take a specifc card,
4
is also a prerequisite for all card
efects making a claim on the interest. Through the use of the [classic] force, in many instances, execu-
tion is simplifed, false shufing will be superfuous, and many of the efects are truly an incompre-
hensible mystery to the lay person.
Here I can only give an introduction to the appropriate procedure (for there are various
4 The author assumes that not every reader is familiar with the term Forcieren, which is derived from French, and
therefore explains the term in German: Eine Karte gezwungenerweise ziehen lassen. The classic force is the only one discussed
and used in this book (Trans.).
12
methods of performance), for the force is more a mater of practice than anything else. You can learn
the passes by yourself, as well as shufes and set-ups; for the learning of the force, however, you
must always try it out with other people present. Hence in the beginning, you make use of friends or
acquaintances, or you learn the pass so well that if the force does not succeed, you can help yourself
out with it and you will not be embarrassed.
For the [classic] force you must know any one card, which you bring to the top. The proce-
dure in section 1 e is the most suitable one to use for this.

You now bring this card to the middle by means of sec. 1 a; do not remove your litle fn-
ger, but let the upper packet of the deck rest on it. The next card under the litle fnger is thus the
one already known to you. Now you approach someone and while you invite him to take a card for
himself, you bring your right hand sideways to the right on the lef hand, and with the thumb of your
lef hand quickly push the individual cards of the upper packet into your right hand so far and so
quickly, that at the moment when the person reaches for the card, you have already pushed out all the
cards, which are lying on your litle fnger, and the next one now presents itself, as if by chance and
quite naturally. You must discern this moment exactly. But should there be a mishap, either because
you have let the proper moment go by, or the person wants to take a card from another place, you
certainly must not (as I have ofen seen, even during public productions) stop at the card you want
to force and present it in an obvious way, but you should allow the person to take a card where he
wishes and then either use the pass, or perform another trick.
Anyone who correctly understands all the passes and shufes will absolutely not be embar-
rassed by such an insignifcant incident. I will endeavor to make the interested reader familiar with
such a large number of tricks that he may always be at ease and can undertake everything with cer-
tainty. During the explanation of the tricks I will very frequently make reference to these paragraphs.
You can also force several cards one afer another, only this requires somewhat more concen-
tration.
Some people perform the force in this way: they have the card to be forced as the botom card
in the deck, then perform the pass, where this card then lies on the litle fnger. Yet this procedure
is more risky, for this card is much more easily pushed under the others, while when following the
above method, one has a beter feel for the card, because it is the frst of the botom section.
Section 3. False Shufes
We now come to this sleight, which is simple in and of itself, yet which, through the de-
ception on which it rests, draws a veil over the lay persons eyes, which prevents him from seeing
through the mystery of the trick. In most works of this kind, only two shufes are given, which
merely refer to one card, that is the botom one, and they learn to either keep it as the botom card or
bring it to the top.
However, I will acquaint the reader with shufes which are much more advantageous and
useful, and through which even people who are profcient in such things have been fooled.
The frst and most essential requirement for learning such shufes is: to be able to shufe in
the regular way skillfully, quickly and surely.
The usual methods for shufing are:
13
1. While you hold the deck upright in the lef hand with the face side turned to the right, with
the right cut of a packet from the deck, at the same time insert the cards that are still in your lef hand
somewhat loosely between those which pulled up, and repeat this procedure two or three times. And
while this method of shufing is very common for games, it is completely useless for accomplishing
our aim.
The second, and indeed most usual way to shufe is:
2. This: the deck is held upright in the lef hand just as in 1., and the right hand cuts of a
packet; yet the cards cut are not, as earlier, inserted between the remaining cards, but are allowed to
fall one by one, or several at once over to the lef of them, in which the thumb of the lef hand helps,
in that it quickly peels of the cards one afer another from the packet held in the right hand.
And we must use this method for a false mele [French: shufe]. It allows you to shufe, even
afer one or even several chosen cards have been inserted in the deck. A procedure which will fool
everyone who might be on the way to guessing the workings of the trick; for he sees that the cards
have been shufed and indeed in such a usual way, such a completely simple way, that any kind of
set order of the cards must be destroyed. I will designate this shufe by a.
Afer you have brought the taken cards to the top through a pass (that is, when the deck is
face down in your lef hand), you should then shufe and yet the cards must not move out of their
position. This takes place in the following way:
You proceed according to the instructions for shufe 2; as you remove one section with your
right hand, and want to begin to let these cards fall over the remaining ones, you bring the litle fnger
of your lef hand somewhat in front of the section remaining in this hand, which is turned against
your body, thus now all the cards fall not directly on this packet, but on your litle fnger, which forms
a division between the two packets. Now, once you have shufed over all the removed cards from
your right hand in into your lef, you quickly grasp the packet that is under your litle fnger, and
bring it over the previously shufed down cards, where the cards placed on top earlier again lie un-
changed in their place, and from there, through passes or forces, can be used
in any way you like. Fig. IX depicts the holding position of the litle fnger in
the preceding shufe.
Before you are able to execute this shufe very quickly, you must use
these precautions: frst, do not let the litle fnger protrude too far, and hold it
just on the edge of the cards; and second, always allow the cards to fall only
somewhat more against the front edge, that is, against the index fnger of your
lef hand, so that no one will notice that there is a division between the re-
maining packet and the newly shufed packet, but will think the deck closed.
How infnitely advantageous this shufe is, each of my esteemed readers will be convinced,
if he reads through the upcoming pieces; for a trick that is simple in and of itself can gain interest
through this shufe.
There is still one method of shufing in order to achieve the same goal, and in practice you
can rotate the preceding and following methods. This method of shufing gives you an opportunity
to exhibit an impressive bit of sleight of hand.
You push all the cards in the deck, which you hold face down in your lef hand, over into
your right hand, except the botom three or four, which you hold like a fan in your lef hand between
14
your thumb, which lies on the back side and the following three fngers, which lie on the face side of
the card. The right hand holds the remaining cards with the same position of the fngers.
Here it must be assumed that the cards shown have already earlier been brought on top of
the deck through suitable passes.
We will call this form of shufe b.
Now raise both hands about to the height of your face, so that the face sides of the cards are
turned toward the spectators, and as you let the index, middle and ring fngers of your right hand do
the work, push and insert the cards lengthwise before those already located in the lef hand. For ex-
ample, you frst spread out fve or six cards before the three or four cards remaining in your lef hand,
then stick in a few cards in diferent sections, then spread out another layer and so on. This you con-
tinue to do repeatedly, until you have in your right hand, along with the cards taken by the person,
only a few other cards, which you then quickly put on top of the cards remaining at the beginning in
the lef hand, and now nimbly push the whole together.
This method of shufing, when quickly executed, is just as unsuspicious-looking as the frst
and, through the quick movement of the fngers, ofers a very satisfactory view.
Another kind is shufe c.
This consists of the botom card remaining in its place in spite of all the shufing. This can
be efected simply if you press the middle, index and ring fnger of your lef hand somewhat on the
botom card during the shufe, and now extract a packet from the deck with your right hand and per-
form a simple shufe.
Shufing the botom card upwards is an unnecessary efort, for exactly the same thing can be
efected much more quickly with a one-card pass.
There is also a procedure similar to the one dealt with under a, that that is, several cards al-
ways remain on the botom; since nevertheless in any case they must be brought out from there again,
I consider it unnecessary to bore my esteemed readers by dealing with this shufe, which, moreover,
is still only useful in special cases.
We will call shufe d the one through which a card lying on top is made the second from
the botom card, and then through a one-card pass becomes the botom one. That is, you press the
deck in your lef hand between your thumbs on the back side and the remaining fngers on the face
side, which faces right, and, with your right hand grasping the longer edges, pull out the remaining
cards, through which the top card slides onto the botom one, and thus becomes the next to last one,
and then shufe the cards in the usual way on top of it. Now you quickly pass the botom card to the
top according to section 1., and thus the top card has become the botom one, and yet right afer the
shufe you are able to show that the card in question lies neither on the top nor on the botom.
There are many other false shufes, which, however, have already been employed for dishon-
est ends, for they are intended for sharping. So away with them! These lines are intended for enjoy-
ment and the shufes cited here are sufcient to achieve this end.
Section 4. Set-up Decks
By set-up I mean that procedure where a deck arranged in a certain order, which has been
thoroughly impressed on the memory, is brought into use and a trick based on it is performed.
15
When you perform in social gatherings, where you are exposed to the sharp observation of so
many eyes on all sides, you cannot easily fnd an opportunity to exchange an ordinary deck for such
a set-up one, thus prudence demands except for a few instances, where even among a large number
of people, an exchange can take place very easily and I will come to speak about these cases such
tricks are always to be chosen as an entre piece, for once the order of the cards has been disturbed, it
cannot immediately be restored.
One of the principal set-ups, with which very charming and astonishing tricks can be per-
formed, and which we will designate by a, is the following, which I have composed in such a way as
to make it very easy to impress on the memory; in this it is diferent from the one known up to now,
which is more difcult to memorize.
a)
While the suits of the individual cards are made to follow one another in the order: hearts,
spades, diamonds, clubs, you simply take a card from seven upward and then one from the ace
downwards, that is: seven, ace, eight, king, nine, queen ten, jack. This sequence is as simple as pos-
sible, and when the cards lie in such a way, they nevertheless appear to the eyes of the spectators to
follow each other completely at random.
Thus a deck of 32 cards set up according to this rule has the following order:
1. Seven Hearts
2. Ace Spades
3. Eight Diamonds
4. King Clubs
5. Nine Hearts
6. Queen Spades
7. Ten Diamonds
8. Jack Clubs
Now here a new rule begins, according to which, as soon as you have ordered the cards up to
the jack, the next suit is skipped, and the ordering is then continued with the following one, conse-
quently there now come:
9. Seven Spades
10 Ace Diamonds
11 Eight Clubs
12. King Hearts
13. Nine Spades
14. Queen Diamonds
15. Ten Clubs
16. Jack Hearts
According to the above rule, the next suit is skipped, as follows:
17. Seven Diamonds
18. Ace Clubs
19. Eight Hearts
20. King Spades
16
21. Nine Diamonds
22. Queen Clubs
23. Ten Hearts
24. Jack Spades
Then again:
25. Seven Clubs
26. Ace Hearts
27. Eight Spades
28. King Diamonds
29. Nine Clubs
30. Queen Hearts
31 Ten Spades
32 Jack Diamonds
Now you can have the deck cut as ofen as you like, but in doing so no card must be allowed
to fall, or above all be brought out of its order, so you will always have the sequence, and can name
the cards from the top in order, as soon as you know only the botom card, which you very easily can
fnd an opportunity to glimpse as you lif up the cards from the table on which they have been cut,
and take them for yourself. For a beter understanding, we will go through an example.
If a packet is cut of the deck, and this is brought again under the remaining packet (and this
whole performance together is called the cut) so that you have seen that the botom card is the eight
of clubs, you immediately perform in your mind the following calculation: diamonds are followed by
clubs, and the eight is followed by the king., thus the top card is the king of clubs, afer which comes
the nine of hearts, etc., etc.

With the help of the shufe given in Section 3, you can use a refnement, which up to now has
not been described anywhere. That is, you shufe right before the eyes of the spectators and yet you
know how to give the sequence of the cards.
The procedure detailed in Section 3 is used, thus it is always only the botom half of the
deck that is shufed, and the top 10-12 cards remain undisturbed in their order and always avail-
able to you as you choose. You only have to use a feint in order to obtain the knowledge of the frst
card. That is, just as you have shufed through for the last time, and the cards that were on top in the
beginning are on top again, as though out of clumsiness and accidentally, you drop the top card, this
is done in order to have a chance to glimpse it when you pick it up, and in this way to already know
the following one. If, for example, the deck has been cut several times, you now tell people that you
are also going to shufe again. You now shufe according to section 3. a, and through the above-men-
tioned feint, you fnd that the top card is the jack of clubs; thus you know immediately: at the jack a
suit is skipped, thus spades follow, and afer the jack comes the seven, thus the next card is the seven
of spades, followed by the ace of diamonds, etc.

There are a few other practical uses for this set-up, which in other books are counted as new
tricks, uses about which I will come to speak in the explanation of the pieces.
A set-up for 52 cards is somewhat more difcult to maintain, and is also not as frequently
used, for on account of the easier handling, people usually perform the trick with only 32 cards. Nev-
ertheless, in order to meet any possible wish, I will detail the sequence here. Exactly the same rule is
followed as for 32 cards. The suits follow the order: hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs and the 13 cards:
two, ace, three, king, four queen, fve, jack, six, ten, seven, nine, eight.
17
The rule, according to which afer the eight, the next suit should be skipped, is not used,
rather the order of the suits continues uninterrupted through the whole deck.
1. Two Hearts 14. Two Spades
2. Ace Spades 15. Ace Diamonds
3. Three Diamonds 16. Three Clubs
4. King Clubs 17. King Hearts
5. Four Hearts 18. Four Spades
6. Queen Spades 19. Queen Diamonds
7. Five Diamonds 20. Five Clubs
8. Jack Clubs 21. Jack Hearts
9. Six Hearts 22. Six Spades
10. Ten Spades 23. Ten Diamonds
11. Seven Diamonds 24. Seven Clubs
12. Nine Clubs 25. Nine Hearts
13. Eight Hearts 26. Eight Spades
[page break]
27 Two Diamonds 40. Two Clubs
28. Ace Clubs 41. Ace Hearts
29. Three Hearts 42. Three Spades
30. King Spades 43. King Diamonds
31. Four Diamonds 44. Four Clubs
32. Queen Clubs 45. Queen Hearts
33. Five Hearts 46. Five Spades
34. Jack Spades 47. Jack Diamonds
35. Six Diamonds 48. Six Clubs
36. Ten Clubs 49. Ten Hearts
37. Seven Hearts 50. Seven Spades
38. Nine Spades 51 Nine Diamonds
39. Eight Diamonds 52. Eight Clubs
Another way of seting up the cards is the following, which we will designate by
b)
The 13 cards of one suit are set up, that is, as follows:
Ace, three, king, seven, queen, four, jack, six, ten, two, nine, fve, eight.
We will come to the use of this set-up later. Actually, set-ups do not really belong in the cat-
egory of performance pieces properly speaking, and can at most be performed once, for otherwise, if
the secret is explained, they lack all interest, while other pieces have the merit of sleight of hand and
quick performance in their favor. My friendly readers will perhaps accuse me of passing over in com-
plete silence dozens of set-up decks that enable you to dealing winning hands,
5
but to that I reply that
5 Now known as cold decks. There were, even then, performers who featured a demonstration of dealing winning
hands. Notable among them was the Frenchman Comus, whose blindfold piquet dealing is noted in Robert-Houdins memoirs.
Hofzinser had a segment of some programs entitled Warnung vor dem Hazardspiele (A Warning Against Games of Chance),
the details of which I believe are not known, but which certainly sounds like such a demonstration. So it might be reasonable
for the purchaser of such a book to hope to learn such a secret, which would explain this comment. (R. Hatch). The author
does, however, give one demonstration of how to deal a winning hand below in Part III, num. 35-3, but using a prepared deck
18
I have eliminated such set-ups here for the same reason which induced me to make no room for more
false shufes in these pages.
Now we come to:
Section 5: About Prepared Decks and Cards
One of the most useful of all prepared decks is the one with a so-called long or wide
card. By the long card I mean a card in the deck which, because of its length, can be felt among all
the other cards. The deck is trimmed, that is, on all four sides by a half line (its best to have this done
by a bookbinder), and you can even have it trimmed by a quarter line. But when the narrow side is
trimmed, one card is to be lef out and this is then called the long card. Such a card in the deck ofers
endless advantages and makes things easier, because, for example, you always have the taken card
put in the deck and you can completely close it for the purpose of the pass, without having to bring
a fnger between the inserted card and the remaining ones, for you have put all of these under the
long card, which, when the deck is taken up again, immediately ofers itself to the touch, so that you
can execute the pass at it and thereby bring the inserted cards on top for further use. What has just
been said is valid in the same way for the wide card, a card, which has been taken out of the deck
when the long sides are cut. It is this card also, which is necessary for the execution of the pass with
one hand, as it is given in section 1. b. 2. For in this case, the thumb, which as was said there, reaches
over the deck, grasps the wide card all by itself. The chosen card thus will always be inserted under
this card, and the people who think that they have inserted their cards in diferent places in the deck,
have all put their cards under the wide card in the deck. You thus execute the pass at this card, and
all these cards come to the top, from where they can be used as you desire. We will come to the many
uses of a long or wide card, of which the frst is preferable, in the explanation of the individual pieces.
There are still other prepared cards, in which either 1) the high cards are wider, the low ones
longer; or this distinction is employed 2) on the face card and non-face cards, or 3) on the red and
black suits. It would be superfuous to deal with the use of such a deck here, for it will be more fting
to say something more about this when we deal with the tricks.
You can also have a deck trimmed in such a way that, for example, face cards, or high cards,
or all red cards are cut on their long edges in a convex curve, the and cards which contrast with this
in a concave curve. Yet this type is less in use.
A third way of cuting a deck is this: you have the whole deck trimmed in a conical shape,
and you use this for the reverse insertion of the card, where the base of the cone of the taken card lies
on the narrow side of the remaining ones, thus this card can be felt among all the rest and the trick
consists of promptly taking out this unlike card. Such a deck ofers the advantage that, if, through a
quick and unnoticed movement of your hand, you arrange all the cones so they lie in the same direc-
tion, you can even show that the deck is not prepared, because none of the cards is longer or wider
than the others. The many uses of such a constructed deck will later be mentioned. These are methods
of preparation which are usable in many diferent cases.
The deck, as well as the individual cards, can also be prepared in many other ways, which are
used in special cases, and about which my well-disposed reader will learn in more detail later on in
this book.
I now close this introduction, not without fearing that I have already made myself guilty of a
great mistake in the eyes of my esteemed readers, in that I have lingered too long here; but I console
of cone-shaped cards, not a set-up deck (Trans.).
19
myself with the conviction that the fundamental elements of an object to be learned cannot be de-
scribed in sufcient detail.
We have now spared ourselves in the future all boring repetitions, because I will be referring
later only to the individual paragraphs and their subsections.
I believe I will be making a not unwelcome addition to this introduction for the interested
reader if I give here a few more practical pieces of advice.
1. You should try to make the following card fourish your own. As you grasp the deck in
your right hand on the narrow side and somewhat curved together, you let the cards run quickly one
afer another into your lef hand, held in a diagonal direction sideways and somewhat lower. It ofers
a prety sight and you can ofen conceal the working of a trick behind it, in that many spectators will
think this in one of the sleights. In order also to give this child a name, we will call this procedure
the spring.
6
Figure X will give an explanatory picture.
2. The atention of the spectators must always be defected from your hands, but especially at
the moment when you want to perform the pass or another sleight. You use feints.
3. So that you might not already betray in advance
what you want to perform, if there should be some
mishap, instead of the intended trick, be prepared to
quickly perform another. In the second part, I will go
through a few such cases by way of example.
4. If you are called upon to repeat an efect, you
agree to this with the greatest readiness, but neverthe-
less, quite nonchalantly do something else for the next
trick, and only later, when no one is thinking about it
any longer, you perform the repetition, and afer the
performance, you can also even call peoples atention
to the fact that you are repeating the efect, something
which you do not normally do. There are a few tricks,
however, which you can repeat immediately without concern; do not engage in additional repeti-
tions, however, for interest in them quickly disappears.
5. Never allow yourself to do anything with dirty, well-worn cards, because the handling of
such cards becomes uncommonly difcult, if not impossible, and even someone who is very skillful
can be embarrassed; this is not counting the disgust of having to touch such sticky cards.
6. Unless expressly desired otherwise, you ordinarily use a deck with 32 cards, because of its
smaller size.

7. Make the sleight of hand your own, well and truly concealed, of hiding [i. e. palming] one
or more cards in the hollow of your right hand; that is, you curve the hand somewhat with fngers
closed, and through this, press the cards, which lie in your hand with the face side downwards, so
far together, that they do not protrude anywhere, and then maintain a casual, relaxed position of the
hand.
8. If at all possible, try not to have any spectators behind you, but without leting it be obvi-
ous.
6 In German, Rauschen.
20
9. Always maintain a downwards inclined position of your hands, so that the [face of the]
botom card can never be seen by the spectators.
10. When you have long or wide cards in the deck, if the cards are going to be cut by the spec-
tators, turn to persons who you presume will not trouble themselves to feel the cards; also ask them
to cut quickly and allow no time for them to think about it.
11. If you are having people think of cards, call on someone quickly and unexpectedly, and
then immediately ask another question. The reason for this feint will be illuminated in the explana-
tion of the trick in question.
12. Get in the habit of a fowing style of speaking, which can easily turn here and there, with
which you will constantly capture the atention of the spectators, and can guide them according to
your will.
I have divided the tricks that follow into three parts, and indeed I have in the frst of them,
where we are moving among a large company, gone through only those tricks which require prepa-
ration, and have been selected for their efect. You will also fnd in such a gathering a much easier
opportunity for various exchanges, as the eyes of the spectators can also be readily directed to other
objects. Very simple tricks would have litle appeal in such a large company.
And now, my good reader! I cordially invite you to visit with me today the tea party of Frau
Grfn (Countess) Feldberg. You will fnd honest, jovial, carefree people there formality and boring
etiquete are completely banished from this circle.

21
Part I
7

The quiet, soothing murmur of the tea ketle falls silent, the cups are emptied, only here and
there still stand dishes of strawberries, butered slices of bread, and similar delicacies, or platers
with a few forlorn slices of meat where a short time before the meat was still heaped in masses, but
in which tremendous and terrible inroads have now been made people are rising, and the parlors
are flling up. A few elderly gentlemen hasten to the gambling tables; but you, my dear reader, and
my humble self prefer to take part in the merry talk, which now winds its way in quick twists and
turns like a cool, gaily bubbling spring through the domain of the company. But, my good man, I
must make you acquainted a litle with the people among whom we are moving. The Frau Grafn you
already know, the lady next to her is the Prsident (wife of the chief magistrate); in the armchair to
the right, you see the Italian Comtessa Fiordini, who is chating right now with the handsome Major
in the Hussars; to the lef, the prety young widow of the Counselor of Justice P . . . reclines in an
armchair and puts her beauty and her lively temperament to work on the young Baron R . . ., who
has returned only a short time ago from a trip to England; the ample lady there, with the Junoesque
proportions, who has her back turned to us, is the wife of the director of the local observatory, who
has just now been called to a game of whist by one of his acquaintances. She is talking with Herr M .
. ., a just emerged, very talented writer. From the group standing there at the window near the shelf
with the fowers, the sound of merry laughter comes toward us and in the middle of it we see a elder-
ly gentleman, with the most jovial face in the world, around whom a number of ladies and gentlemen
have gathered. This is the actor G . . . , a beloved fgure in all the circles of the haute vole (high ranks
of society). The two young counts and the son of Baron, D. . . who is here on holiday, have gathered
at the door with a few ofcers, and, if I am not mistaken, they are talking about the new ballerina and
the training of horses.
Gaiety, freedom and the most cheerful mood waf with the gentle rustling of beating wings
through the air of the salons, and the hours fy quickly by.
One of my acquaintances must have informed the Frau Gfn about me for she suddenly
stands up and comes to us. My dear Herr Julius,
8
I must give you a good scolding, for it is really
mean of you to be so stingy with an art with which people can entertain company. You have heard
that the Comtessa sang, Herr G . . . has recited for us such a masterful declamation, you heard how
Herr. M . . . has regaled us with the magnifcent Serenade of Schubert, and you, selfsh man, will not
contribute to the general entertainment. Oh, its no use [protesting]! We know that you know how to
perform card tricks; now quickly, dont keep us waiting for so long! Wont you show us something?
A wish expressed in such a friendly way is only to be obeyed, and afer the ladies and gentle-
man have assembled, I go up to the Frau Grfn with a deck of cards, still in its package, and address
the following words to her (that the title is not spoken goes without saying).
1. The Telltale Cards

Frau Grfn will note that here is a quite new deck of cards still in its wrapper. I now ask
you to open it and to assure yourself of the untouched condition of the cards. It is well known that,
once opened, a deck can never again be placed back in its wrapper properly. I now ask you to be so
kind as to pick a card like this and still again and Frulein too, if you will, and Herr Major will
perhaps also participate. But I will not trouble you any more, I will now shufe, in order to mix the
7 This section should be compared to the style of the two stories by Hofzinser in Patuzzis 1857 Magie: Nach dem
Tagebuche J. N. Hofzinsers. On a superfcial level, both involve partially named aristocrats: Amalie v. ****, Grfn B****, Wil-
helmine v. ****, etc. (R. Hatch).
8 Why is the author here referred to as Herr Julius? A clue to his true identity? (R. Hatch).
22
cards well. Ah! Excuse me! I have dropped a card, but it doesnt mater. I now ask Frau Grfn to take
a card for herself, and Frau Prsidentin also, and the Frulein here also and here also, and here also,
and so on, if you please. Thats enough now! I ask you to put the cards all together here on the table
in front of me, I will put the rest on top of them, and now I ask you to shufe them well. Every time
anyone takes a card from the deck, it will tell me which card he had earlier. Will the Grfn now try
it! Ah you chose the eight of diamonds, so you had the nine of hearts before; Frau Prsidentin takes
the ace of hearts! Earlier you had the queen of spades and you, Frulein, had the ten of diamonds
for you have taken the seven of hearts (and so forth for everyone).
vwv
Before you go into the company, you set up the deck in accordance with Section 4. a. and cut
it yourself so that the ace of hearts is on the botom; it is on this card that the stamp is placed, and this
deck is ofered for sale in shops with this card on the botom. Now you carefully place the deck in
the wrapper again, wrap a white thread around it, just as it was before, knot this, and put the drop of
sealing-wax where it was before, restored again.
Now you shufe according to Section 3 a. and with the precautions in Section 4 a. for this
case. Afer this is done, drop the top card as though by accident and you have seen that it is, in this
case, the king of clubs. You thus already know that the card now on top is the nine of hearts. Now
you have the cards removed from the top one afer another in sequence, but the sequences of the per-
sons as well as that of the cards must be noted. This is easy, moreover, as long as you have noted the
frst one.
The choosing and guessing of the cards is a feint, adopted in order to frst, throw a cloak over
the mater, which is simple in itself, and second, gain time for thinking [about the order of the cards].
If you still are not practiced enough, you can help yourself out by dealing with the persons again in
the same order as they earlier removed the cards one afer another in sequence.
2. The Disappearing Face Cards
Frulein, will you be so kind as to shufe the deck? I will take the 12 face cards out of it and
now ask you, Frulein, if you will look at the botom one of them. Please memorize it well, and now
very kindly tell me whether you want to pull out this card by the front or the back edge; I also ask
you not to look again at the chosen card, which, Frulein, you already know anyway, but keep it face
down in your hand.
(Repeat this until every face card has been taken) when you have the last one taken, you
must take care to position yourself so that no one can see into your hollow right hand. The reason for
this follows below).
I now ask you to see for yourselves that the top card of those that have been lying up to
now untouched upon the table is a non-face card. I will put this deck again here and cover it with a
handkerchief. Now I ask all the ladies and gentlemen who have endeavored to take a card to name
these cards for me at the same time. There will very probably be a great babble of exclamations, but
dont be afraid, I will nevertheless be able to distinguish each card. Now! What? You have all chosen
the queen of hearts? Thats not possible! For the queen of hearts lies there under the handkerchief as
the top card in the deck. Ah! You may well wonder, and perhaps think that I have had you choose a
whole packet of queens of hearts, and then specially transformed one on top of the deck. That should
have indeed been very simple. But I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to look at the cards which you
have in your hands, and you will be assured that you actually have chosen the face cards from the
deck and that all the queens of hearts have disappeared.
23
vwv
In the preceding piece, you intend to perform it with the queen of hearts; you could just as
well choose another face card. You take the queen of hearts from another deck, identical to the one
we use, cut it widthwise in the middle, and keep this half on you. While the cards are shufed, you
fnd time to take out this half and conceal it in your right hand. You now fnd all the face cards except
for the queen of hearts in the deck and put this on top of the deck, which you put down on the table.
Arrange the withdrawn face cards in your hand into a packet and put the half card as the botom one.
Now take this packet in your right hand, in such a way that the face side is turned toward the specta-
tors, place your thumb behind on the back side, and the remaining 4 fngers
closed over the face side, so that the index fnger covers the cut edge of the half
card, and thus it seems as if a queen of hearts is the botom card. Fig. XI.

Thus you approach the people, hold the packet right before their eyes, ask
them to look at the card and while you ask where they wish to take out the
card, lower your hand, so that the front side edge is turned toward the person,
and at the same time make use for a moment of your lef hand in order to bring your right somewhat
further forward on the edge. Now if anyone wants to take out the card by the front, you most willing-
ly agree to this in words, while you move back with your right hand, that is, sliding back on the side
walls of the packet. The lef hand, which is curved lightly over the right, can serve for the more rapid
execution of this movement, in that the thumb of the same hand pushes the packet forward. Through
this backwards sliding movement of the hand, the half queen of hearts has also been pushed back, so
that the person now takes another card, which, however, as ofen mentioned, he must not see.
If anyone should express a wish to take out the card backwards, it is all the easier, for then
you only need to present your hand turned across to the right and present the back edge to the
person, where he has to take the botom card, thus he will just as litle take the queen of hearts, for it
extends only from the top down to half the length.
So you continue this until all the face cards have been taken, and with the last one you
observe the remark made above, where you then must try to bring the half card unnoticed to your
side. Yet caution must be used, by having people who sit quite far apart from one another take cards,
in order to prevent the communication of the names of the face cards, for this reason also you hold
it right in front of their eyes, so that another person does not see them. The real queen of hearts you
have, as already said, put on top of the deck. While you now grasp the deck, you perform the pass as
in Section 1. a., through which, naturally, another card lies on top. You allow, however, the litle fnger
to lie between, and as you turn again to the table, you perform the same pass again, through which
the queen of hearts again lies on top. You could also use the procedure from section 1 e or f.
3. A Scene from Life
I now turn to you, Herr Major, with the request to shufe the deck, then to pick out the four
kings from it and to put them in front of you on the table. Meanwhile I have the honor of presenting a
simple hat, which, as you see, is completely empty and in which you cannot fnd the slightest prepa-
ration. I will place it here on this table. Comtessa, allow me, for a few moments, to ask for this lovely
handkerchief.
Now! Herr Major is already ready! Ladies and gentlemen, you can see for yourselves that
these are the 4 kings. Herr Major, if you will gather these 4 cards together into a packet, and give it
to me. Now I will wrap these 4 kings here in this handkerchief and put everything together in the
24
hat. No, wait! Anyone might perhaps think that the hat has nevertheless been prepared in a secret
way, although I assure you, that this is one of the most innocent top hats that there has ever been up
to now. I would rather take these 4 kings out again handkerchief and hat are empty and I ask dear
Frau Prsidentin to hold the whole thing tightly and the four gentlemen to pay very close atention.
Now I will take the 4 queens from the deck. You see, here they are, and they lie on top of
the deck now please, Herr Major, shufe the cards once more, and I will blow on them during the
shufe. And now
I command that the roles
Of ladies and gentlemen shall exchange places, one, two, three!
Frau Prsidentin, are you holding on to the 4 kings good and tight? Please look here are
the 4 queens in the place of the 4 kings, which right now are roaming around somewhere in the deck
but we will put a stop to those fne fellows. Allons March! Come! Into the hat. Voil! Here in the
hat, wrapped up in the handkerchief, are the 4 kings. As they have a thousand times in life, here too
ladies and gentlemen exchange roles.
vwv
Since this piece can be performed without preparation, this is not really the place for it. It
does serve, however, to provide a fting transition to the following one, and also, because of its sur-
prising twist, belongs more to the greater card tricks.
Afer the preceding piece, you collect the chosen cards yourself and thus can easily fnd an
opportunity to bring together the 4 queens, which, according to Nr. 7 of the practical advice, you con-
ceal in your hand. Meanwhile, you have had the hat brought in by an assistant, with whom you have
already earlier arranged this. When you give the pack for shufing, you give it quite causally with
your lef hand, and as soon as you have received the frst handkerchief, you take it in your right hand
so that it is somewhat covered by it. When you show the hat, you take it by the brim with your right
hand and let people give a cursory glance inside it.
When you get the 4 kings, you take the handkerchief in your lef hand and bring your right
hand, in which you have the 4 kings between your thumb and index fnger, but the four queens hid-
den in the hollow of your hand, under it. Having your right hand under the handkerchief, and grasp-
ing it on the outside with your lef you put the handkerchief in the hat. But while you are pretend-
ing you have changed your mind and are going to take the kings out again, you quickly exchange
these with the queens, which you now take out, while you leave the 4 kings in the handkerchief.
For this is the work of an instant, and takes place deep inside the hat, so no one has an in-
kling, and the way it unfolds is astonishing, as I have ofen had a chance to see for myself. You again
add the assurance that the handkerchief and hat are empty. That you now must always hold these
4 withdrawn cards, but without making it obvious that the face side cannot be seen, goes without
saying. The 4 queens you now wrap in the second handkerchief and give it to someone to hold. The
transformation, which is so awesome to the spectators, is also efected quite simply. You now take the
4 jacks from the deck, stick them tightly together like a fan, and show them feetingly; but you call
them queens. For everything takes place by candlelight and cannot be clearly seen, so no one will be
in a position, to diferentiate, whether these really are jacks or other face cards. I have performed this
piece already very ofen before sharply observing eyes; the blowing on the cards is merely a joke. The
remaining procedure needs no further examination, for it is self-explanatory. From this piece you go
on immediately, without allowing much time for thought to:,
25
4. The Magic Hat
As you have seen for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, the hat is empty, without prepara-
tion, a quite ordinary felt hat; since we already have it here, it shall serve us again. Herr von R . . .
will you be so kind as to shufe the deck. I will place the deck here spread out on the table and now
I ask you all, as you please, to take out cards for yourself, wherever you like, look at them, and put
them back again, anywhere in the deck. Please, Herr R . . ., shufe once more, then throw the whole
deck into the hat. Now I will shake the cards to mix them even more and cover the hat with a hand-
kerchief. And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you please, always name for me the card you have taken
and I will immediately pull it out of the hat and show it to you.
Seven of clubs! Seven of clubs! Aha! I believe I have it already here is the seven of clubs, and
Herr Major ! The ace of hearts. As soon as I look! Now! Now! Ah! You have put it here under the
jack of clubs, it hid itself but it availed it nothing! Here is the ace of hearts (while continuing to speak
this way, you give out all the wished-for cards).

vwv
As difcult as this trick appears, a trick which always produces astonishment, it is neverthe-
less very simple and requires only a litle memory and concentration.
Although you show the hat to be empty, even let people reach inside it, it is nevertheless very
well prepared. You cut strips of paper (supple paper, the best is leaves from a book) approximately
5 inches long and 2 inches wide These you fold lengthwise. Now you take the hat and raise the
sweatband completely up. There thus still remains in the hat the lining, which nevertheless is no-
where fastened down. You set the hat in front of you, in such a way that the fastening of the hatband
is to the right and now in the same direction as this, glue one of the strips of paper to the hat and the
lining, so that the closed end is below and you can put cards in the pocket formed in this way, so that
they stick out approximately a half inch above the edge of the lining, which will certainly be the case,
if the strip is cut 5 inches long, and its edge of is glued on the edge of the lining. Then you do the
same on the directly opposite side and then on top and on the botom in the middle between these
two pockets. Fig. XII.
Now sort the cards (from one of your identical decks) by suit
and put them in the usual order: 7, 9, 9, 10, jack, queen, king,
ace, and thus ordered, always put one suit in one pocket, so that
when you turn the hat with the fastening to the right and with
the opening towards your chest, and pressing your lef arm
against yourself, while reaching inside it with your right hand,
to the right you fnd the hearts, to the lef diamonds, on the top,
spades, and on the botom clubs, and in fact, the face sides in all
four pockets face the inside of the hat, thus the frst card in each
pocket is the seven, the eighth one the ace.
When the hat has been prepared this far, turn the sweatband
down again over the lining, and should it extend more than a
half-inch beyond its edge, cut it of at this length.
If you have made the strips narrow and glued them on well and cut of the sweatband at this
length, you can quite tranquilly show the hat to anyone and no one will notice anything. Aferwards,
when in order to perform the trick, the hat is covered with the handkerchief, you surround it with
26
your lef arm, without leting it be noticed, and turn it so that you feel the buckle at the right. Now
when anyone requests a card, put your right hand under the handkerchief, and while you agitate
the cards with your lef hand and speak the corresponding words, search with your right hand for
the desired card, while you right in the beginning lif up the sweatband and count of the sought-for
card in the pocket. For greater intelligibility, here is an example. The nine of diamonds is desired. You
know that diamonds is opposite hearts, thus to the lef, and nine is the third card from the top, and so
you can, to the general astonishment, quickly show any desired card.
A casual manner, along with a constant lively pater and a absolutely precise concentration
are the main requirements for this efect. Yet you must pay atention to which cards from each suit are
already missing, in order not to make any mistakes in the counting; hence it is good to put the cards
that have been taken out on the table, in order to keep them in view. In the beginning, if you are not
yet quite fuent in this sleight, you can also have only a few cards chosen and, to this end, ofer the
deck to people with your own hand.
5. Continuation of the Preceding
Ah! Ladies and gentlemen! You really will not believe that the hat is a help to me in fnding
the cards. I will confess to you where the art lies; that is, I have marked all my cards, and the whole
difculty rests only on the very fne and accurate sensitivity of my fngers this is common practice.
But now I have come to speak about the magical power of my hat. I turn to the Frau Grfn. Which
card did Frau Grfn choose? The ten of hearts. Will you now command in which size this ten of
hearts shall appear? The larger one or the smaller one? The larger one. You want the larger one!
Very well! Please give me your ten of hearts, I will put here in the hat and now
Through unseen Spirit powers
It shall transform itself into a giant monster!
Allons! and here a giant monster ten emerges oh! This is not enough! How ofen do you
command that he shall appear in this form? Three times? Right, then! Esteemed Frau Grfn, my
spirits are obedient servants. Here is the frst here the second and here the third giant, but their
powers are far from exhausted. If Frau Grfn should order these giants to shrink again, I only need
to throw one of the horrible apparitions back into my magic hat and order:
That the Titans instantly
Arrive in the kingdom of the pygmies
Now a ten of diamonds appears here quite in miniature. And if Frau Grfn should perhaps
express the wish to see more such prety litle dwarfs appear, I have here the honor, one two fve,
of conjuring up a whole handful out of thin air.
I will turn the hat over, I have nothing but ordinary cards here.
vwv
This amusing continuation of the preceding can be very easily accomplished if you have a
few cards made (the most suitable are cards with pips) in a format as large as the entire height of
the hat and as wide as the space between two glued-in paper strips, and have the same cards made
up in miniscule format. You acquire a fairly large number of identical cards of both kinds, especially
the small ones, and stick the large ones in the space to the right, and the small ones to the lef. Thus
you can perform this piece with two diferent cards. Nevertheless it is not very advisable to engage
27
in repetitions. Also you must pay close atention to the person who drew that card of which we still
have the abnormal-sized copies in the hat, and then quite by accident address your question directly
to this person. Should he desire a larger number than you possess, you can easily help yourself out by
pretending that this would take too long, because the large cards cannot grow as quickly. When the
large card is thrown in again, you put it immediately in its earlier place. When you want to end the
trick, you press the sweatband down again completely over the lining, put everything inside in order,
remove the handkerchief, and tip the hat, emptying the deck you put into it in the beginning out onto
the table.
6. The Leter
Since we have here a whole generation of cards, large and small, together, and it would
take too long to sort them, I would rather use a new deck, which just like the frst is still to be found
in its wrapper, and is completely untouched. I will put the lower-numbered cards away again and
keep only the 32 piquet cards; Herr Baron, will you be so good as to shufe the cards. Thank you, and
please give them back to me, and the Comtessa will perhaps be so good as to take a card. Please tell
me, which card is it? The jack of spades. Will the Comtessa tear this jack of spades into litle pieces.
Yes! Yes! Without hesitation, and now please give the pieces to me. I will spread them out here on
the table, and order them a litle in rows, and now decide, Comtessa, which of the two rows I shall
take, the top or the botom. The botom one, then? Very good! Away with it! In this top row there are
only fve pieces lef, these I will put down again in two rows, and now I ask you to command which
row belongs to me! The top one. As you command! The botom one thus belongs to the Comtessa,
and I ask you to please take it away. Now there are only three pieces here, will you very kindly select
one of them! This one? Please remove it now and keep it on you. The remaining cards, which are no
longer necessary, I will place here in this box, which is very simple; for as you see, the box and lid are
of the same depth. But now I have almost forgoten that I have the responsibility of puting the jack
of spades back together. I must ask you to be patient for a while. But in order not to let the time go by
unused, will the Herr Professor be so good as to read out loud to us this leter, which I received this
morning with his address. Please open it! What, another address? To the Herr Major! What? It does
not belong here either; it is addressed to the Fraulein. Ah! Now that is really too much! Now! Finally
we come to the Comtessas address. Now please open this leter, for the torn-up jack will be found
whole again inside it But there is a piece missing here! What! Is something missing? Ah! Now I re-
member, Comtessa, you kept back a piece; please align this, thus showing that it fts the card exactly. I
open the box, it is empty; for in a miraculous way the litle pieces have been joined together again.
vwv
From another deck identical to yours, take a card, in this case the jack of spades, and tear a
litle piece from the corner about the size of your thumbnail, so that a corner pip and a few lines of
the picture are still on it. You keep this litle piece, but you put the card in an envelope, seal it, and ad-
dress it to one of the people with whom you are thinking of performing the trick, place this envelope
in a second one, then this one again in a third and so on, and address each one to one of the other
persons, but only to those who you are certain you will meet in the company. This leter, as well as the
torn-of piece you stick in a place where you can easily take them out unnoticed. Afer the deck has
been shufed, and you have goten it back, you quickly look through it and fnd the same card as the
one in the envelope, and quickly bring it to the top, so that from here it can be forced, according to
the instructions in Section 2; here, however, you must act with certainty, for, as you can easily see, it
is an indispensable condition for this trick that the card be taken that you want to be taken. However,
should you have a mishap and another card is taken, you can easily help yourself by performing with
this one of the tricks from the second part and then quickly force the jack of spades again a second
time. If it still doesnt work, you postpone this trick until a more favorable moment.
28
Now the card is torn up, and while this is being done, you have to take care that the litle
pieces dont turn out to difer too much from the one you have already in readiness, thus when they
are placed spread out on the table, you put this one too among them, but you must mark well both its
row and its place. The litle pieces must also be placed face side down. From now on the whole trick
depends on the right asking and use of a few questions, which are always to be guided in such a way
that the row in which our litle piece lies, and then this piece itself always remains lef over and is
played into the persons hands. Since there will be a few cases later on where the course [of the trick]
depends on such questions, in order to guard against all repetitions, I will go through an example
which will serve for all occasions. Suppose the card has been torn into 9 pieces, thus this, with the ad-
dition of ours, gives 10; you put 5 of these in the top row and an equal number in the botom row; our
litle piece lies in the middle of the top row.
Question: Answer:
Which row should I take? The top one
Then I must take away the botom row.
But if he should say: The botom one
Then you say: Good, then I will take it away
and the top will remain lying there
You can make use of these 5 remaining litle pieces in two ways. If the person whom we are
dealing with is of a rather simple nature, you can confdently ask him to choose one of the pieces, and
he will certainly put his fnger on the one lying in the middle, at which you immediately say: It was
impossible for me to know which one would be chosen : I will now take all the others away. (our
piece lies in the top row on the right corner).
Question: Answer
Which row belongs to me? The botom one
I will obey your order and the top one will
remain there
But if he says: The top one
Then you say: the top one belongs to me,
So the botom one is for you; I will not touch
either one of them; now please remove your
row
Now, for example 3 pieces still lie there, and ours is on the right.
Now comes the invitation: Please choose one of them! If several pieces are lying there, you
can, as already mentioned, assume with certainty that the middle one will be chosen; if you have
earlier put your piece in this place, it has already been stated above what you have to do.
However, I have deliberately supposed an unfavorable case, that is that your piece is on
the right. Now on your invitation, yours will certainly not be chosen, so you say: Good, you have
selected this one, so I will take it away. Now there remain only two pieces and indeed yours is the
one lying to the right. Now you come up with a new question: Which of the two shall remain lying
29
there? If he says the one on the right, then you take the other away, and give him the frst one to
hold, if he says the one on the lef, you ask him to take away the one on the right.
The questions must be asked quickly, the answers implemented instantaneously and without
hesitation. With some practice, this is very easy to do and in addition to this you take the precaution,
when you ask the questions, of turning to the diferent persons, thus it is scarcely to be supposed that
anyone will be able to guess the connection.
The box used here is made of sheet brass, round, in diameter the length of a card, and of
an inch high. Box and lid are of equal height, and the later fts completely over the box. Also made of
the same material is a round sheet which fts exactly in the lid; it is held in the lid through the press-
ing together of the side walls, so it is completely unnoticeable; when the box is shut, it falls on the
pieces of the card put in the box; then, when it is opened again, the sheet of brass forms the empty
botom of the box.
7. The Enchanted King of Clubs.
I will now take the deck in my hands again, and shufe it well a few times. Now please look
at the top cards and also here at the botom ones. Perhaps now Frau Grfn will endeavor to look at
this top card, and put it back in its place and I ask for the name of this card. The king of clubs. I
kiss your hand. Now I turn to you, Herr Major, and ask you to again take the same king of clubs, and
without looking at it, hold it in your hand. And now, Herr Major, when I command my magic spirits,
which I certainly do not have any pleasure in knowing, that this gloomy card should change into a
more jovial, friendly Fortuna,
9
that is certainly everything that Frau Grfn wishes in her heart, isnt it
true? Then you share my wish. Oh, please hold on tightly to the king of clubs. So Allons! One, two,
three! Please look at the king of clubs and our wishes are granted.
Unfortunately, it is not in my power to enchant this Fortuna forever, for when Herr Major
gives this card back to me and Frau Grfn perhaps will look at it again, thus the black king has
already suppressed this beautiful Fortuna again and taken her place. I now turn to you, Herr G. . .
in order at the same time to make a litle test of my art of prophecy. Will you, in the same way as the
Herr Major, take the king of clubs again, and hold it concealed in your hand, put your hand on your
heart, and so I say, animated with the prophetical spirit, that what you press to your heart is what you
ardently love. One! Two! Three! Now we will learn the identity of Herr G . . .s lady love! Ah! What is
this? A cigar! Oh, please, a thousand times pardon! For my art of magic has most horribly forsaken
me! I intended to produce something quite diferent, for evidently my magical formula must have
lacked something. Ah! Dont laugh, if we learn that Herr G . . .only loves cigars fervently! Ha! Ha!
Ha! But I will hasten to make good my mistake. Please put this cigar here in front of me again, and
it should quickly change back into its original form. Which Frau Prsidentin, when she pleases, can
see for herself. You see, it is once again my old king of clubs. Now however, please, Fraulein R, take
this Proteus
10
of a king, and without looking at it, hold it concealed in your hand, for precisely on
account of its ability to change its form, it ofen avoids a strangers glance. Now, however, I hope that
my spirits will not embarrass me like that again if I order them to have this king of clubs give up to
us your secret thoughts, Fraulein. Yes! Yes! Go ahead and laugh! We will immediately learn what the
Fraulein loves most in her most secret thoughts. Allons! Your invisible thoughts! We want to know!
Please now Frulein, turn over the card! You see there now laughs at us the mischievous God of love
(Cupid)! Dont be angry that this king of clubs is such a tatletale. Give me the Cupid back, and you
9 Fortuna was the name of the Roman goddess of fortune, or good and bad luck. She is also the origin of the expres-
sion Lady Luck (Trans.).
10 In Greek mythology, the sea-god Proteus was known for being able to change his form at will (Trans.).
30
shall in a moment behold again the gloomy face of the king of clubs. Herr Professor, please look and
see whether this is correct. Voila! Here is the old king of clubs.
vwv
You split three cards from a deck with identical backs, which is what we will use, peel of the
face side, and glue some fne drawing paper to the other. On these 3 cards (we could still call them
that) you have a clever draughtsman paint 3 diferent objects. I have chosen, for example, a winged
Fortuna with a horn of plenty, a lighted cigar and a laughing Cupid. But you must take care that the
litle pictures are executed with great delicacy and charm. Then take from 3 decks, likewise with the
same back side, the King of Clubs, and now you put these 6 cards in the following order face down:
The King of Clubs
Fortuna
The King of Clubs
Cigar
The King of Clubs
Cupid
Thus refurbished, you have these six cards on you.
Now while during the preceding trick the spectators are occupied with looking to see wheth-
er the litle piece chosen beforehand really does ft the jack of clubs found in the leter, you can very
easily fnd an opportunity to take the deck in your hand again, put the king of clubs from it on top
and on this the six custom-made cards, so that the picture always lies between two kings.
Now you begin the trick; shufe according to Sec. 3 a, perform the pass in Section 1 a. in
order to bring the arranged cards to the middle, show the cards now lying on top, as well as a few
from the botom, and as you continue to talk and approach a person, you execute a half pass from
Section 1 a, through which the half of the deck that is on top at that moment goes under the botom
packet in such a way the face sides are turned towards one another, and the back is showing on both
the top and the botom of the deck, so they look exactly the same. On top you put the prepared cards
and now you use the procedure given in sec. 1 d. That is, you have people look at the frst king of
clubs, and while it is being looked at, you turn the deck over, so that the person who thinks that he is
puting the king again in its earlier place, is actually puting it on the botom packet of the deck. Now
you turn to another person, and at the same moment you turn the deck over, so that now Fortuna is
chosen, which you then again have put on the botom, then the deck is turned over again, so that the
second king is visible, you now go to the king belonging to your deck, which is the last one.
8. The Scales
It very frequently happens in everyday life that the weight of small objects is estimated
informally in the hand. I will now also use this method on the cards here, only with the aggravating
circumstance that I will give not the weight, but the number of the cards, always with certainty. In
order to demonstrate this on the spot, I will put the deck here on the table, cut it in half and I now ask
you to decide which packet to choose. This one? So the one to the right; I will place it here on top of
the fngers of my right hand and you will permit me to weigh it. I declare that in this packet there are
12 cards. Please count them. Is that right? Is my statement correct? I will now collect the cards, and
turn here to Herr von M . . . I will cut the deck again please choose a packet! I will weigh this in my
hand, and can immediately detect that it contains 17 cards (And you can repeat this as much as you
like).
31
vwv

The new deck brought out in Nr. 6 is provided with a long card (or even with a wide one).
Before performing this efect, you put this as the botom card and bring a number of cards unnoticed
from the top below this card, but you must know the number. In our case it is 12. You now cut at the
long card, and when you have people decide which packet is to be weighed, arrange it in such a way
that the answer must always be that the packet which remains for weighing is the one which was
under the long card. For this you proceed n the same way you did in Nr. 6 with the choosing of the
litle piece. You now act as if you are assessing the weight, and can now easily give the number you
already know. While these cards are being counted by the spectators, you have an opportunity to
again bring a few cards down from the still remaining packet, which again has the long card as the
botom card. You now also place the already counted cards on it, and in this way you can repeat the
trick several times. If you want to have fewer cards, you only need to take away 3-4 unnoticed during
the collecting of the cards from the already counted ones, and put them on top of the deck.
9. The Card that Transforms Itself
Herr Major, please shufe the deck thoroughly. Thank you kindly. Will Frau Grfn now do
me the favor of taking a card, looking at it and shufing it back in the deck. Frau Prsidentin, please
do the same as well, and Herr von G . . . will perhaps also be so kind ah! Herr Oberlieutenant, you
have not yet honored me, you must also quickly take a card, and Frulein, may I ask you. But I will
not trouble you too much. Now please note the cards well, but tell no one what they are.
I have just one more thing to ask: that is, that Herr Major will shufe the pack once more,
and then put it in his breast pocket. I will not touch the deck again. Herr Major, have you done that
now? Yes! Now I will reach into the pocket and take out the frst card which comes to my hand. Ah!
Here I already have one! During this, however, I take the deck from Herr Majors pocket into mine,
in order not to trouble him any longer. This card snatched at random I will now wrap here in this
handkerchief my hands are empty please see for yourselves that only one card can be felt in the
handkerchief. Please now Frau Grfn, is that your card? Yes it is! I will wrap the card up again, rub
it a litle and here, Herr Oberlieutenant, it has now turned into your card. Am I correct? Quite right!
But now quickly for Frau Prsidentin. I rub this a litle. One! Two! Three! Here is Frau Prsidentins
card and in an instant through the same technique Herr von G . . . his and now once more Alllons!
Fraulein! Here I have the honor of showing you your card. Is that right? Yes!
But ladies and gentlemen! You are too indulgent with me, and expect too much from me. This
trick was very easy to perform, for you have indeed all taken one and the same card. Here it is.
vwv
For this efect you likewise need a long card, which you continually force, according to Sec-
tion 2. Each time afer it is shufed in, you feel it right away again, perform the pass on it according to
Sec. 1 a. and force it again. Why you take the deck and put it in your own pocket will be explained in
the following trick. This piece is really astonishing. You have to take the precaution of having persons
far apart from one another take cards in order to prevent communication between them.
10. Sympathy of the Cards and Dice
I will now take my deck again in my hand, and ask Herr Doctor to very kindly take a card
and to look at it. I will now shufe this card back in, and divide the whole deck into 4 packets here on
the table. Now I ask you to look at these two dice and inspect them closely in regard to their genuine-
32
ness. On one you will fnd that only 4 sides are marked, and its purpose is to show us in which packet
the card taken by the Herr Doctor lies. I will now put it here in this cup, and ask you to throw it. Its
a three thus the card must be in the third packet. I will quickly take it out, and push the remain-
ing cards together. Now there is yet a second die. On this one, however all six sides have spots. This
one shall decide for us, which card in sequence in the earlier designated packet the Professors [i.e.
Doctors] card shall be.
The die indicates 5. So we count! One, two, three four fve. Herr Doctor! Here is your card.
vwv
The performance of this piece depends simply on a deception, and if you should be called on
for a repetition, in addition to the way given here, where the cards are false and the dice are genuine,
it can also be performed in another way, where the opposite is the case. We will go through the order
according to the frst case performed earlier in our number.
You provide yourself with a deck of identical cards, for example, all aces of spades, yet with
the same backs as the one used by us. This you have earlier already stuck in your pocket, and since
in the preceding trick you have kept the cards in your pocket, the exchange can be made all the more
easily. The remainder of the performance can be inferred from the speech, only it is to be noted here
that during the whole you have to carefully avoid all turning over of individual cards. The dice are
made of wood, and are a half-inch square. One is marked only on 4 sides with the consecutive num-
bers 1, 2, 3, 4. If by chance a throw should be result in one of the blank sides coming up, have the die
thrown again. For a cup you must wherever possible choose a thick dark glass and have the throw
done on a table covered with a heavy cloth. The reason for will be very easily apparent from the
following number. If you are not called on to repeat this trick, then leave it at that, but immediately
pocket the dice and false cards again as usual. But should a repetition be desired, pretend that you
are somewhat embarrassed by it, but fnally proceed in the following way.
11. Continuation of the Preceding.
I see already, ladies and gentlemen, that you have no mercy with me and will lead me onto
the precipice of embarrassment. I abandon myself to my fate and am prepared to repeat this piece.
But I have in haste already put the cards in my pocket again. Yes! My dear ones! You still get no
peace, now come out again. Perhaps the Comtessa will take a card! Please, put it for me here in the
deck. I will now shufe the cards and convince myself that the deck really is mixed together. Or no,
I will not touch it again, but will put it on the table. But then where are the dice? Ah! I believe I have
put them in my pocket too! Right, there they are. I will put the one, where only 4 sides are provided
with spots, here in the cup again, and please Comtessa, quietly hold on to it. Now I will divide the
deck as before into 4 packets and now ask you to throw a die. The die shows 1. So the card must be in
the frst packet. Now the second die also goes in the cup! This one shows us three. So the 3rd card in
this packet must be the one taken earlier. I will no longer touch it, but please, see for yourselves.
But since someone from the company may perhaps doubt the genuineness of the cards, just
as the dice, as you see, are the same, the cards have also remained the same, for you can see for your-
selves that they are our usual cards.
vwv
Since you have previously pocketed the cards and the dice as though in haste, the repeated
exchange can be made all the more easily without being obvious. For you now bring out the genuine
cards.
33
You have someone take a card and put it back into the deck, and you immediately perform
the pass as in Section 1. a., through which it becomes the top card. Now during your speech, afer the
shufe, you pass two cards from the botom to the top according to section 1. e., and in doing so, the
frst card now becomes the third. You could also force a card, but here you have the awkward situ-
ation that afer you have had the person shufe the card back into the deck, you must fnd it again
and make it the third from top; while this is efected quite simply through the pass and the one-card
pass. The division into 4 packets must be quick and be so arranged that the top cards lie in the frst
pile, which you can place, as you desire, to the right or to the lef And now to the dice. These are false.
You go to a wood turner and have 4 dice made, two of which are genuine and are the ones used in
Nr. 10 In two, however, an indentation is made, approximately one line deep, in which a lead plate
is inserted. The dice are then painted exactly alike. On one dice, opposite the lead plate, a spot is
now painted, and this die is suited for the choosing of the packets On the second die three spots are
painted in the same way, opposite the lead plate, and since this one has spots on all six sides, they
must be painted opposite the four. These dice can now be thrown as always; one will always show
one, and the other three. In order to conceal the heavy thud of these false dice, you have them thrown
on a heavy cloth. For in everything else they look exactly the same as the others, so people can indeed
look at them, but not take them in their hands.
12. The Exchange of Suits
I now ask that the deck be well shufed, and give the ace of diamonds out of it to me
thank you very much and now please the ace of spades too.
I will make use of those two litle tables; but in order to avoid all suspicion, please lif up
the cloth and look to see whether a card may perhaps be hidden somewhere on the litle table or the
cloth. My hand is empty, the cloth lies again on the table. I will now take this ace of diamonds and
put it here under the cloth and then in the same way the ace of spades under this one. And with-
out my approaching the table again, I order that the two representatives of the suits should change
places. Allons! One! Two! Three! And you see here, where the diamond lay earlier, the spade now lies,
and here instead of the spade, the diamond Oh! If you are quick, anything is possible!
vwv
You have cut the pips out of a diamond and a spade from another deck, but if these are too
small to cover another pip, you can, instead of the too small one, cut one out of ordinary paper in the
same way and paint it. On the back of each one of these pips you have stuck a litle piece of sof white
wax [or magicians wax] and thus prepared, have stuck them together. Now while the tablecloth is
being examined, you walk around a litle and thus have an opportunity to break the pips opposite the
two aces, so that when they are shown, the diamond now appears as an spade and vice versa. That
you will hold these cards up to no ones eyes goes without saying. The whole trick must be performed
quickly. You take the supposed ace of diamonds, bring it close it to the table, and while you lif the
hanging part of the cloth with your lef hand, you reach under it with your right hand, in which you
hold the card, whisk away the glued-on diamond pip with your fngers, and place the card under the
cloth face down on the table. Since your hand was covered by the cloth, you could do this very easily.
The same thing is done with the alleged ace of spades. If then the cloth is raised, you must not let
anyone take hold of the card, but show it yourself, in order, if need be, to be able to remove any traces
of the wax found on it. If there is no opportunity to use the tablecloth, you put the cards (each one
separately) under the foot of one of the gentlemen present, while you, as you bend down and pretend
to put the foot right on it, have time to remove the stuck-on pips.
34
13. The Prophetic Billets
I have here a whole special deck, one that is writen on. That is, on the same number of bil-
lets, which incidentally are just as large as the usual cards, are writen the names of the 32 cards of
a piquet deck. In order to assure yourselves of the truth of my statement, please look at a few cards.
Thus the 32 cards lie together here completely without any order. To top it of, I will also shufe
them. Since, however, only 18 cards are needed for our purpose, I will put 14 of them aside and the
remaining ones I will divide here by sixes into three packets. I now ask for the deck of cards used ear-
lier. I will now depart and in my absence please remove a billet from one of the packets and keep it
on you and then when I re-ente, give me whats writen on it. (You now go out and when you come
in you continue the speech ). Herr Professor, please be so kind as to take a card from my deck, but
not to look at it yet. I now ask that the name of that card which has been writen on the billet be said
out loud! The queen of hearts! I now ask you, Herr Professor, to turn over the card you took, and
you will fnd that the card you have taken has been named in advance by the billet, for Herr Profes-
sor, you also have here the queen of hearts!
vwv
You cut out of a sheet of card paper 32 billets, approximately the same size as an ordinary
playing card. On 14 of these sheets, you now write the names of diferent cards, for example, the
seven of hearts, the jack of clubs, etc. etc., but on each one a diferent name. There still remain 18
cards; on each group of six of these you write the same name, for example, on the frst group of six,
the queen of hearts, on the second six, the ten of clubs, and on the third the king of diamonds. These
you now place face down on top of one another, so that on the botom lies the queen of hearts, on
top of this, the ten of clubs, and on top the king of diamonds. On this now go seven of the diferent
writen-on cards, and the other seven go under the queen of hearts. Thus prepared, you put the deck
in your pocket. Then you bring it out, and give out for examination the seven from the top, and then
the other seven. You collect them again, thus you put all 14 under the queen of hearts. You have made
one of the 14 diferent writen-on cards wider, that is, all the remaining 31 are cut somewhat narrow-
er. This you now put as the frst card under the queen of hearts, and the other 13 under that. This is
only necessary, however, if you want to make the thing still more inexplicable, and want to shufe the
cards. Then when you take the deck for shufing, you grasp it at the third card, and thus cut of only
the 14 diferent writen-on cards, and now shufe this up to the king of diamonds. Since nevertheless,
as is mentioned in the speech, only 18 cards are necessary, you can count of 14 and now have the
king of diamonds as the top card in your hand. Divide these 18 cards into 3 packets of six each; in the
frst packet there are only kings of diamonds, in the second only tens of clubs and in the third only
queens of hearts.
Now you have already arranged earlier with that person from the company (I for example
with you, kind reader!) as follows. When a billet has been taken from the packet which I put down
frst, that is a king of clubs, then as I re-enter, you speak with your neighbor to the lef, and if it is
taken from the middle, that is, a ten of clubs, you say nothing, but look directly in front of you. Now
while you are out of the room, you quickly fnd in the deck the three writen-on cards and put them
on top of it, in our case frst the queen of hearts, on that the ten of clubs and, as the top card, the king
of diamonds. You now force the card corresponding to the marks on the billet. In your case, your
confederate has spoken to his neighbor on the lef we thus now know that the queen of hearts has
been taken. Since, however, this card now lies in the deck as the third from the top, you must pass
two cards according to Section 1 e. in order to gain them as the two top cards and to be able to force
according to Section 2. You must also arrange with the person with whom you have the agreement,
that he should take care that no other billets but the one taken be looked at, and further, that when
the trick is repeated, a card will be taken from another packet. The card taken out of the real deck is
35
given back and during the time you are out of the room, you place the 3 cards again in their earlier
order. Immediately afer the end of the trick you must remove the billets.
14. As You Command
Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, it is scarcely to be believed, what kind of mastery you can ac-
quire over the cards. As a demonstration, I will give here a very small example en passant. Will Frau
Grfn very kindly take a card, look at it, shufe it in again and put the deck on the table. What does
Frau Grfn now command? Shall I name the card, shall I have it taken again or perhaps in an instant
cut at it?
vwv
You now force the taking of the long or wide card what you have to do, when you want to
have it taken again, is already known you force it again. Should you cut at it, that is still easier, for
you feel it in an instant, and cut at it, where it thus becomes the botom of the cut packet.
15. The Enchanted Candle
Part 1. The Quick Arithmetic
Comtessa! I ask you to shufe and now to take a card for yourself from the deck and Frau
Prsidentin, will you perhaps also endeavor to take a card; Herr Professor would you be so kind?
Herr Baron, may I also ask you to take a card, and Herr Major will perhaps also take part, and I will
also ask the Frau Grfn to be so kind. I will now shufe the remaining cards and ask you, Comtessa,
if you will put your card in here and Herr Major here Herr Professor in this place now I will shuf-
fe the cards a litle, so that they cannot be in any particular order, and now, Frau Praesidentin, I ask
for your card, and Herr Baron will perhaps put it on top, and Frau Grfn right in here, and now I will
shufe once more. Six cards have been taken; I will show 6 cards from the top, and please look to see
whether one of the chosen cards is found among them, for it is very easily possible. None, then! These
six cards I will now put again on top of the deck, and now I will also show 6 cards from the botom;
look to see whether one of the cards taken is perhaps among them. Not there either! These cards I
will likewise put again in their place. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have assured yourselves that
none of the cards you have seen can be found on the top or the botom of the deck. I will now touch
the deck no more, but I will ask Herr Baron to permit me to put the whole deck in his breast pocket,
and I now I will ask you, Herr Baron, which one do you wish your card to be? Do you want the sixth?
You want the sixth? Very good! One, two, three four, fve and here the sixth is your card! and which
one do you order, Frau Praesidentin the third very well! Ah! Here now 2 cards have come into
my hand! Two and one make three here is your card! (You then ask the Professor, then the Major,
then the Comtessa and act as if you have forgoten the Frau Grfn).
Part 2. The Candle
Ah! I beg your pardon a thousand times, Frau Grfn, for I have just remembered that I owe
you your card! Which one do you order, Frau Grfn? The frst! Ah! That is easy, for I will now take
the frst card that comes to my hand (in the meantime you have taken the deck out of your pocket),
so that is your card! What? Its not? Ah! There I have certainly missed the mark! So it is this one here!
What? not that one either? forgive me, Frau Grfn! I dont know where the mistake lies I beg
your indulgence for this mistake! It is very awkward not to be able to fulfll your obligations. So if
Frau Grfn will permit me, we will go on to something else.
36
I will take two of these candelabra, on each of which 2 candles are burning. Which of the two
does Frau Grfn choose for me? The right one. The one to the right for me? Yes, thats right. As
Frau Grfn orders, this one belongs to me, and the second is unnecessary. So we will put it aside.
There remain then only these two candles on the chosen candelabra. Which of the two shall now
remain? The lef one. Just as you wish. So I must perform my trick with the other one. I could not
have known which of the two candles would be designated for me; but in order to prove that no
preparation was done on any of them, I will blow out the one that it was decided should remain,
and break it. You see, ladies and gentlemen, it is a quite ordinary Milly candle.
11
There is now only
one isolated candle here, which, Frau Grfn, you have chosen for our intention. I now command the
power of invisible forces, of which I indeed myself only have a dim idea, to make the Frau Grfns
card travel out of the deck and into this candle. I will now take the remaining cards and Allons!
One, two three please here are the cards and look and see, Frau Grfn, whether your card is
among them? No! that is natural! For it is only gone into the candle. Frau Grfn! I have the honor
of presenting your card to you, and of here paying my debt.
vwv
With a drill you make a hole in a candle from the botom up, so wide that a card rolled up
widthwise will ft tightly inside it, so that it cannot slip. Lets suppose that we want to put the queen
of spades into it. You now have this candle put into one of the candelabra by an assistant, with
whom you have already earlier entered into an understanding, yet you must agree on a signal by
which you can recognize the candlestick as well as the candle; for example, the form and color of the
candle sleeves, where the form can indicate the candlestick, and the color the candle, or other tokens
which might be ofered by chance. Hence, you must not let this candlestick out of your sight during
the preceding trick, but without being obvious about it. If by some strange mishap, this candlestick
should be put to another use by anyone and removed, you must give up the performance of this trick.
So much for the preparation. Before you have the cards shown, you have the queen of spades put on
the botom, then have all the remaining persons take cards as they wish, only make use of the force to
have that person with whom you want to perform this trick take the card identical to the one that will
be found in the candle. In our case, Frau Grfn must be forced to take the queen of spades, which
you only need to pass according to Section 1 e. You then begin to collect the cards again. You take one
packet of the deck in your right hand, the other in your lef hand, and have the frst card which you
take up placed on the packet in your lef hand, and while you curve the right hand over the lef, as if
you were closing the deck, bring your litle fnger between the two packets and when you now quick-
ly turn to another person, you cut of only the top packet, so that the second card is placed on the
frst, while the spectators believe that the cards have been put into diferent places in the deck. Now
when two or three cards are brought together in this way, you perform the pass according to Section
1 a, and then you can use the shufe in Section 3 a., and then perform the pass again, through which
the cards already inserted earlier are in the middle again; afer this pass, you have not removed your
litle fnger so that, when you now lif up the top packet, the following cards will be placed again on
the earlier ones. If, for a change, you want to have a card placed on top, you frst perform the pass in
Section 1 a, through which these cards then also come on top of the others, for through the pass they
have been brought to the top. If you then want to have them placed in the middle again, perform the
pass again. In this way, you gather all the cards, and last the one of that person which whom you in-
tend to perform this very special, showy trick, which fundamentally belongs to a very worthy art. Yet
you must carefully note the order of the persons as you take the cards from them. Thus the card of
the sixth person lies on top, and this person here is Frau Grfn, under it the ffh, and so on. Let my
dear reader not reproach me for spending so much time on this simple thing, for later he will easily
11 A Milly candle (Milly-Licht) is a candle made of stearin (or stearine), a waxlike substance similar to parafn. It was
named afer A. de Milly, who perfected the process of making stearin in 1831. (Trans.).
37
see how good it is to have a thorough explanation of this procedure in front of him, since other very
interesting tricks are based on the same introductory procedure, and through reference to this trick,
we will have saved ourselves tiresome repetitions in the future.
If you now want to show that none of the chosen cards is either on the top or the botom of
the deck, you earlier perform the pass, so that these cards come to the middle, and leave your litle
fnger on top of them. Aferwards you again perform the pass in Sec. 1 a., through which the chosen
cards again come to the top of the deck, and then you put the deck in the empty breast pocket of
one of the gentlemen present, but in doing so, you must carefully observe which way the back side
ends up facing, for that is where the six chosen cards are. With the questions, you now skip the sixth
person and ask the ffh whose card is the second of those on top. In our example this person wishes
her card to be the sixth one. You thus take from the packet the frst card from the top, which is the one
of the Frau Grfn (that is, in order to dispose of it and get to the second) and then one by one the 4
cards from the face side, that is from the botom, put them face down on the table, and then bring out
as the sixth card the second from the top, that is the card of the ffh person. And so you proceed with
all the persons, in that you take the previous cards from the botom and at the wished-for number,
one from the top. It is thus quite natural that in regard to the persons you have to observe the reverse
number from the collecting. When you now recall that you still owe that one person his card, you
take out the cards that are still located in your pocket and then pretend you are embarrassed by your
failure. You now take the candlestick with the prepared candle and also a second one, and follow the
questions that are given in Nr. 6 with the litle card trick, with the changes that have become neces-
sary, that is, here you must try to keep the prepared candle the remaining one.
At the appropriate moment you take the remaining cards you have previously taken out of
your pocket, and when you command Three! you make a movement as if you were throwing them
at the candle, but hold them in your hand. You can have them examined without worrying, for the
persons card has indeed already long lain concealed under the others. You break the candle in the
middle, and unroll the card found there in order to give it to the person.
16. The Cadmus Cards
As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, I always use this simple deck of cards. I now turn to
the gracious Frau Direktorin with the request that she take a card. Please put it back in here again.
I will now shufe, and will deal several cards one afer another and without looking at them, I will
nevertheless immediately know when your card is there. So this one, and this one and this one, and
still a few more, but they are all still not the one, but I will say that now this is certainly the one. And
now, gracious lady, please decide for me how many copies of this card you want: you can say as
many as you want! So, then, eight. Good. Here is the frst, here the second (and you continue to count,
up to the desired number), and, as you can see for yourself, neither on top nor on the botom, nor in
the middle, are there any of these kind of cards. I will again put down a few of them, and please com-
mand me, how many you want! Herr Baron, how many copies of this card shall appear? Fifeen! In
an instant! One, two, three and so on. You can see the cards grow in my hand, as the armored men
did out of Cadmus dragons teeth.
12

vwv
You have a card painter make 30-40 copies of one card of the deck, with the same backs as
the other ones used. You pocket these, and at a fting opportunity, which you can easily fnd while
12 A reference to a story from Greek mythology: Cadmus was the son of King Agenor of Phoenicia and brother of
Europa. A dragon devoured Cadmuss companions. He killed the dragon, and on the advice of the goddess Athena, sowed its
teeth in the earth, from which there grew the Spartes, ferce fghting men who helped him found the city of Thebes. (Trans.).
38
turning, you bring the packet into your hand. In our company you could best use the cards which
you have once already used in no. 10, and, while the broken candle is put aside, you have very easily
found an opportunity to take them into your hand. You place these identical cards at the botom of
the deck, and you put your litle fnger between these two packets, just as for the execution of the
pass. You now show 6-7 cards from the top, turn to another person, while quickly executing the pass
in section 1 a, and now also show a few cards from the botom. The identical cards thus all lie on top
the litle fnger always remains between these cards and the deck. During the following, as you have
people take cards, you must maintain a place and position of your hands where the spectators cannot
notice that there are more cards than usual. You now have one of the identical cards taken, looked at,
and put back. Now while you go behind a table, where you stand turned toward the spectators, so
that no one is behind you, bring a few cards up from the botom through the pass in Section 1 a you
could also do this through Section 1 e in any case, however, you must know how many there are.
You now walk behind the table, raise the deck before your face and while you show the face side to
the spectators, you put the cards down, during a suitable speech; in doing so, you have to be aware of
when you come to the frst of the identical cards. If then, during your speech, you want to show that
you have only ordinary cards, you always perform suitable passes, just as in the beginning; at last
you again bring a few cards on top from the botom, and repeat the same procedure as the frst time.
Yet you must have the necessary cards added together in your mind, in order to know how many
you still have in your supply. If anyone should want too high a number, excuse yourself because
these would take too long and the company would become tired. If however, he insists on it, you will
gladly oblige him; since you have used this expression in regard to the company, certainly no one will
be so stubbornly rude as to make the company wait. Never, however, should you let anyone perceive
any real embarrassment, but bring the sophistication of your speech to your aid. When the trick is
completed, remove the identical cards and put the cards of the deck together again. For this purpose,
while you put the cards down, you have already put them all together, and especially the identical
ones.
17. The Best Sleight

I will now ask the Herr Director to shufe the deck quite well. Now, without giving the deck
back to me, please be so kind as to take a card for yourself, and have the Herr Oberlieutenant also
take one, and the Frulein also, and Herr Major will certainly also take a card from you. Thank you
very much, Herr Direktor, for your efort, but I myself will not touch the deck, for, ladies and gentle-
men, during the preceding trifes you have certainly already have thought to yourselves: Yes! Now
if I were of to perform the pass and force cards and use God knows what kind of shufes, now up,
now down and on all sides, that is certainly not giving art to my performances! And you see, ladies
and gentleman, you are perfectly right there, it is really not art, you only need to be able to do it. I will
now try and see whether I am able, even without passes or shufes, to always have an exact knowl-
edge of the cards that have been chosen. But please, this time pay quite close atention to my hands,
for without that it will be possible for you to notice even the least thing. I will now make use of the
quintessence of all sleights. Now will the Frulein put her card in here you see, I close the deck, and
without performing a pass, I will now cut it in another place, and I ask you, Herr Major, to put your
card in here, then close the deck. (Then the Direktor, then the Oberlieutenant in the same way). The
cards now lie scatered in diferent places in the deck, and since during the collection I would not be
able to bring the cards together, I can now shufe without harm; I will nevertheless not be able to
know which are your cards. I will put the deck here on the table. Dont believe that I have perhaps
ventured to deceive you again, that is, that you have all taken the same card, as you did earlier this
I will demonstrate right away. The deck has been shufed I will now cut at random. Herr Oberlieu-
tenant! Which card did you take before? The seven of clubs! Please turn over the top card of the
remaining packet of the deck lying here; it is your card. I will close the deck again and turn to the
Herr Direktor. I will cut again quite at random and Herr Direktor, what did you take? The jack of
39
diamonds! Please look at the card again, at the one I have cut, it is the jack of diamonds (and so on,
for the Majors and fnally the Fruleins cards).
vwv
That you always put the cards in diferent places is false. You turn to diferent people, who
are not siting near each other, and it will thus not be noticed that you always cut at the wide card,
and that all the cards are placed under this one. By closing the deck, I mean when the cut packet and
the lower packet again are again placed on each another. It is really not necessary to use the shufe
according to section 3 a, but you can use it in order to lead the spectators to think, incorrectly, that
the sleight lies in the shufing. If you want to shufe, however, you must perform the same pass in
section 1 a before and afer, and indeed the frst time at the wide card, so that the cards lying under it
come on top, the second time, so that these come to lie again under the wide card. In the subsequent
cuting you naturally always cut at the wide card, thus one of the inserted cards is always presented
as the top one of the remaining packet, and indeed following one another in the reverse order from
the order they were inserted; hence you have noted well the sequence of the persons at the insertion.
Since when the cards are put back, you likewise go again from one person to another, they will once
again be prevented from noticing that the deck is always cut at the same place. If you perform this
piece with the necessary precision, it will create tremendous astonishment, for everyone sees that, af-
ter each time a card is inserted, the deck is really completely closed, and no fnger can come between
for performing the pass.
18. The Double Exchange, or The Incomprehensible Mystery
Will Herr Baron be so kind as to take a card and if you like, one more. Thank you very
much. For the time being, I ask you to hold these two cards and to name them to your neighbors.
Now I have here a litle tray, quite simple and without any artifce, in which a container of its own for
the cards is advisable, so that they cannot slide here and there. Now, Herr Baron, will you keep your
cards in this packet like this but still beter, we will wrap them here in the handkerchief, and put
them on the table like this. Herr Baron might perhaps think there is some kind of exchange taking
place before him; so please keep a good eye on the handkerchief with the cards in it.
And now, Comtessa, I will trouble you. Please take a card for yourself and please quickly, yet
another one, and I also ask you to hold them out for your neighbors to see. Now I have here a simple
litle box, exactly the right size for a card to ft in. You see, there can be no doubled botom and no
spring mechanism in it, for both parts are of the same depth. Here I now ask you, Comtessa, to put
the two cards in it. The litle box I will now place here for general observation on the table next to
the cloth in which Herr Barons cards are. Now we will leave both to keep each other company, and
occupy ourselves in the meantime with something else. Permit me, Herr Professor, to make use of
your hat; in a moment I will fetch it from the antechamber, I recognize it from its red lining. Here,
ladies and gentlemen, is the Herr Professors hat, and you will certainly scarcely think that anything
has been done to it earlier. Please feel it all the way around; it is empty and completely unprepared.
I now appeal, gentlemen, to your benevolence, for I now need cigars. Open your cigar cases! Ah! We
have a lot of cigars here. Thank you very much, I dont need that many. I will take only two from
here and two more. The remaining ones I will quickly give back. Although I know that the Comtessa
is not a smoker, I will permit myself nevertheless to ask her which of the two pairs of cigars would
she choose? This one here. That shows an expert eye: that is really a splendid pair of Havanas! The
other pair is not required so we will break them in half I naturally could not have known which
cigars would be chosen; I have also never seen these cigars before. I will now also put these chosen
ones next to the litle box and handkerchief. And now quickly, for the cards in these last two are al-
ready beginning to show their impatience.
40
We will now suppose that I am a great magician, one out of the Thousand and One Nights,
who has Solomons great seal in his pocket. By virtue of my powers I now command the beings sub-
ordinate to me, that is the cigars, the box, the handkerchief and the cards:
Travel, fy just as soon
as the command is issued to you,
Let what the litle boxs space contained
Appear in the handkerchiefs folds.
And what in the cloth was held captive
Let that come to rest in the Havana leaf.
Lets look the litle box is empty inside it is where the Comtessas cards, the ten of spades
and the seven of hearts, were placed they are here in the handkerchief and although you, Herr
Baron kept so good an eye on the handkerchief, your cards have still disappeared I will light one
of these Havanas here it burns splendidly we will open it, and we fnd in the frst one, as in the
second, the cards which were in the handkerchief, the eight of diamonds and the ace of clubs. Oh my!
with a litle quickness, everything is possible!
vwv
You have a tray made by a tinsmith, the botom of which is somewhat indented, and indeed
3 lines deep, under this botom another one is placed so that between the two there is a hollow space,
which for its height has the length of a card, and for its width three times the width of a card. In the
upper botom, which now appears to the spectator to be the true one and which must be divided into
three widths of a card, is cut out as though a card is lying in the middle of it, in such dimensions that
an opening as large as a card is formed in it. Now a compartment is mounted in the hollow space;
the compartment contains two sections formed by a partition wall in the middle; we will designate
the lef one by 1 and the other one by 2, and each of them, as is already apparent, is the same size as a
card. In the lef end, on top and botom on the long sides two coil springs are fastened, which in their
contracted state are exactly as long as the compartment; at their right end, the two springs are fas-
tened to the side walls which join the upper and lower botoms together. This compartment also has
a litle hook in its right side, which, when the springs are contracted, that is, when Section 1 comes to
rest exactly under the opening cut in the upper botom, hooks into a hole poked out in the side walls,
and there projects out quite unnoticed. If you now unhook this, the two springs are released, and pull
the compartment across to the lef, through which section 1 disappears, and 2 is brought out, that is, it
comes under the cut-out opening. Fig. XIII shows the inside between the two botoms, if you imagine
the upper botom removed. Fig. XIV shows the movement of the compartment at the moment the
springs are released. That all the sections must be made completely identical in appearance is a mat-
ter for the tinsmith, just as also that the lef side of the compartment, as well as the inner surface of
the lef side wall must be lined with cloth, in order to make the impact less audible.
At home you have frst released the springs, so that section 2 comes under the opening. In
this you now place the two cards face side up or you can also perform the whole trick with only one
card which you will have the second person take out of an identical
deck, naturally in our case this would be the ten of spades and seven
of hearts. Then you push the compartment back with your fngers until
the hook is engaged and now the empty section 1 lies under the opening
and forms an indentation exactly the size to ft the cards. The springs are
now contracted and you bring the tray with you.
41
And now we will go through the preparation of the cigars. You look
for two of them which are not very thick, but instead are somewhat lon-
ger; best suited for this are a few quite ordinary cigars, since these have
thick casings. Naturally you must select the kind of cigars whose surface
has no cracks or marked irregularities. You now moisten the tips of two
of them somewhat in your mouth, so that the casing tightly twisted to-
gether there is untwisted, and you can now carefully unroll it. You have
already made for yourself a diluted rubber cement, with which you now
moisten the cigar, and then roll up one of the cards, which you must
have the frst person take, with the face side inwards in a somewhat diagonal direction. The back,
which is now facing out, you brush again with the rubber solution and then, while you help yourself
out as necessary with the rubber [cement],
13
roll the casing over it as it was earlier. A few atempts
will lead to a perfectly successful conclusion. You proceed in the same way with the other cigar, so
that the frst one in our case contains the eight of diamonds, the other one the ace of clubs. Absolutely
nothing can be seen in the cigars, they look like strong Havana cigars, to be judged by their thickness.
You put these in your pocket.
The litle box which you use has the same construction as the box used in no. 6, with the only
diference being that the frst one was round, and this box is made exactly the size of a card and is
half an inch high. You have it painted completely black.
You now begin to perform the trick, as you quickly fnd the 4 cards, the eight of diamonds,
the ace of clubs, the ten of spades and the seven of hearts, and indeed the last two frst, in the deck,
put them on top of it and on this the two others. You now force the frst person according to section 2
to take the eight and the ace, have the two cards placed in the indentation in the tray, that is in section
1 of the compartment, face side down, and then go to a table, in order to place the tray on it; at the
same moment, as you speak, you loosen the hook, which releases the springs, and compartment 2
with the second persons card comes into view. It is these that are wrapped in the handkerchief. You
place the tray aside. You now go to the second person, and force him to take the two cards still in the
deck, that is the ten of spades and the seven of hearts. These are put in the litle box that you hold in
your lef hand, while you have the lid in your right hand, in which you hold fast the tin plate lying
in it, by pressing together the side walls. Now the box is closed, and the tin plate falls on the two
cards and covers them. Hence the litle box seems empty when it is opened, for everything is painted
black, and the tin plate is exactly like the botom seen earlier. While you now go out to fetch the hat,
you take the two cigars in your right hand and conceal them there, while you take the hat with your
right hand and cover your whole hand with it. You can now have the hat examined as you will, yet
in doing this, you must not have your right hand be noticeable. You now have several cigars in the
hat; you reach in quickly with your right hand, and bring out the cigars you are already holding, and
then a pair of others. You bring about the choice of the required pair through questions in the already
known way.
19. The Baby Chick in the Egg
May I be so bold as to present here a dish with fresh eggs. Will Frau Praesidentin very
kindly choose one of them, and the Frulein will also decide on one, and here the Frulein [sic] also
one. These three eggs, as the ladies and gentlemen have seen, have been chosen at random, and it is
impossible that one of them should be known to me. I now ask you once more to decide, Frau Praesi-
13 This Gummiaufsung (literally rubber solution) seems to be a diluted form of the Gummi or rubber mentioned in
no. 22 in Part III. The term seems to refer to rubber cement (Trans.).
42
dentin, which one you choose. The middle one! As you command. I will put it on this dish, which
I will place here. I will break the two remaining eggs, where you can see for yourselves that it has all
the usual contents: yolks and whites. The eggs to the lef or right could just as easily have been cho-
sen.
Frau Praesidentin, will you now take a card, look at it, and put it here on top of the deck.
Now please tell me which card it was, Frau Prsidentin, that you just now drew? The ten of clubs!
Please take it again and, without looking at it, hold it tightly in your hand. Yes, please, hold onto it
well, for in a moment it will have disappeared; I only have to command: One, two, three! Thus Frau
Prsidentin has the nine of spades in her hand and the ten of clubs is here inside the egg, which I will
now break. It is still full of yolk, the card has just now arrived in it. Here is the ten of clubs, and Frau
Prsidentin, if you will look in the handkerchief, you will fnd my prophecy fulflled, wont you? Is
the nine of spades there?
vwv
From several eggs choose the largest one, blow half of it out, so that a litle yolk still remains
in it, and enlarge one of the holes made for blowing it out (naturally you must previously close the
other hole, with what will be said below) so far that you can put in it a card which you take from one
of your identical decks, and which, since nothing depends on it, you cut somewhat on its length and
width for its easier insertion, so that nothing sticks out. Then you fll in this opening again with a
puty made out of plaster and egg white, and let this dry, so that nothing of it is noticeable. The card
is rolled lengthwise as small as possible so you can insert it more easily. You now put it on a plate,
along with several other eggs, and let a few of them be chosen. Since you have put the prepared one
on top, it will be chosen immediately. But dont allow the chosen eggs into peoples hands, but im-
mediately take them again and put them on the table, so that no one has time to examine them, and
perhaps discover the deceit of the prepared one. By means of the already known feint with the ques-
tions, you now gain the prepared egg for yourself and break the rest. You must force the person who
chooses the prepared egg to take the card identical to the one which is hidden in the egg [i.e. the ten
of clubs], and have him put it on top of the deck; while you ask for the name of the card, you pass this
card with one hand according to Section 1 f so that person believes the card which was under the
forced one, and which now lies on top of the deck is his, and takes it in his hand; and since you have
earlier already seen this card (in our case, the nine of spades) you know what it is. You break the egg
with a knife, pull the card out of the yolk in which it is still to be found and, in order not to allow the
spectators a chance to refect, you immediately go to
20. The Bonbons
In this dirty state, however, I fnd it impossible to place the ten of clubs again in the deck.
I am really embarrassed about how to go about it; for I cannot wipe it of with a cloth, for it would
be soiled by this. I have here a litle box, which, as you see, is empty, just as is the lid that goes with
it. We will now put the ten of clubs in it, I will close the box and place it here on the table. And now I
also ask Frau Prsidentin to put the nine of spades in the deck, and take herself another card in place
of it, which, however, I ask not to see. No, wait! it is beter if Frau Prsidentin looks at the card. What?
You have taken the ten of clubs? But that is not possible, for we have put it right here in the box and if
I open it and turn it over the ten of clubs will fall out the ten of clubs Ah! A heap of bonbons
[candies] falls out! The ten knows very well how to transform itself.

vwv
You have a litle box made by the tinsmith, as wide and long as a card and half an inch high.
The lid must be a fraction of an inch larger than the box, which we will call a, so that it fts very
43
loosely and completely covers it. Further a second litle box, called b, is made, which fts very closely
in a and is provided on top with an edge [that extends a] litle, by which, when b is placed in a, the
upper edge of a is completely covered. You fll the litle box b with bonbons or rose petals and place
it in the lid in such a way that the lower surface of the botom faces downwards, and when you grasp
the lid, you press the sides of it somewhat together, through which you hold the litle box b flled
with bonbons inside it. Then you take this in your right hand and the empty box a in your lef. This
you let people see, and with your right hand you briefy show the inside of the lid. Since everything is
painted black, nothing will easily be visible, especially at night by candlelight. You now have the card
put in box a and cover it with the lid, at which box b with the bonbons immediately goes into box a
and covers the card. The ten of clubs is found, as can be seen from the explanation of the preceding
piece, on the botom of the deck; you pass it according to section 1 e, have the nine of spades placed
in any desired place in the deck; in doing so you can use, for example, the spring, and then have the
ten of clubs, which you already have on top, taken by force. When you take hold of the box, with
your right hand you remove the lid, which at any rate comes of very easily, grasp box a with your
lef hand on both its long sides, press it somewhat together and turn it over, and then the bonbons,
or whatever else you have flled box b with will fall out. Afer the performance you quickly remove
everything.
21. The Non Plus Ultra
To conclude, permit me, Frau Grfn, to beg for your indulgence with the most difcult of all
card tricks.
I will shufe, and as soon as Frau Grfn says: stop! I will instantly stop, and I will always
be able to name the card then showing. I will begin thus! Stop! In an instant my hands are still,
and please now look at this card. Now shufe yourself. The card you saw was the Jack of diamonds.
(How ofen you have to perform this will be said in the explanation).
I now ask, gentlemen, for a piece of paper and a pen. Frau Grfn will hold this slip of paper
unread in her hand, until the time I say it is time to open it. Please now take a card to look at, and
hold it out to a few ladies and gentlemen for inspection, and then shufe it into the deck yourself.
Frau Grfn, have you shufed it quite well? I myself will also shufe once more. Now I will put a
few cards from the deck down here on the table, and as soon as Frau Grfn orders Stop! I will in-
stantly stop. I will begin! Stop! So this is the last card, at which a stop is called; we will now count
which one it was. Here lie 4, so this is the ffh. Lets turn it over! It is the Ace of hearts! I now ask Frau
Grfn, to read aloud what is on the strip of paper, thus it will show that I have stated it in advance
with exactitude.
The ace of hearts will be taken, Stop will be called at the ffh card, and this is the card that
was chosen.
vwv
Since you are somewhat known in the company in which you have performed the previous
tricks, you will certainly also know a person among them who possesses a even-tempered, consistent
character. Lets suppose that in our company this is Frau Grfn. We now turn to this person for the
performance of this trick, in which the main role is played much less by art than by shrewdness. The
shufing and saying stop are only a means for learning from several repetitions whether the person
says stop sooner or later. That is, you look earlier at the botom card, and shufe according to Sec-
tion 3 e, and the botom card always remains on the botom. When stop is called, you stop the shuf-
fing and show the botom card. If the person himself has now shufed, as you take the pack from
44
him, you quickly glance again at the botom card and thus without looking at the deck again, you are
already able to repeat the same shufe. Before this, however, you name the card that has already been
taken. You repeat this 3 or 4 times, until you see that the person always orders you to stop sooner or
always only somewhat later.
On the slip of paper you now write the card with which you will be performing the trick (it
is completely immaterial which one it is), then at which card stop will be said, and that this must
be the card taken. If during the earlier shufes, the person has commanded stop early, you can
presume that stop will be said at the ffh, at most the seventh card; but if he only has you stop
somewhat later, you write the 9th or 10th card. And this is actually the whole trick: correctly guessing
the probability. This also cannot be explained, but is a mater of accurate counting and a penetrating
power of observation.
You have forced the choosing of the card that was writen down in the known ways, hence it
can also be shufed back into the deck. When you get the deck back you fnd the forced card while
you are asking a few question, for example, whether it has been well shufed, etc., and put on top of
it as many cards from the top as you have writen down. You now shufe once more according to sec-
tion 3 a, yet carefully, take the deck in your lef hand, and with your right hand put down a few cards
from the top; in doing so, you look the person right in the eyes, and at the same time count in your
head the cards that have been put down. As soon as you note from the smallest signs that the person
is going to call stop, you make yourself ready with the puting down, that is, if you still have a few
cards lef until the designated number, you put these down quickly one afer another; if you have
actually arrived at it, then it is all the beter, if, however, in spite of the fact that you are puting the
cards down slowly and carefully, yet as casually as possible, you are nevertheless already past the
card, you gather the cards together and excuse yourself, since you cannot make the company wait so
long if stop is not commanded. Yet, as has already been mentioned, this case certainly does not oc-
cur if you have chosen someone with an even-tempered, consistent character, and go to work with the
necessary caution and fnesse.
vwv
I now close this part, in which, with the exception of a few pieces, which must be used as
transitions, are gathered together only those which require preparation and which can be performed
to good efect in a large company.
My intentions would have been seriously misunderstood, however, if you have expected
from me in this part the listing of a stereotypical program. My intention was only to give a series of
efects which are astonishing, require litle expense, and are performed exclusively with preparation.
There are still a large number of card tricks which require preparation, which nevertheless
either entail somewhat more expense or require apparatus, the transport of which you cannot pro-
vide in your pocket. Should these pages fnd any kind of favorable welcome, I will endeavor also to
initiate the reader, in an easily comprehensible way, into these until now obscure mysteries. And now
let us go to the second part, in which in a narrative form, mostly new efects will be exposed to the
kind reader for criticism, efects which you can perform without any preparation, with any borrowed
deck.
It is up to the ingenuity of the esteemed reader to freely vary the pieces in the frst as well as
the second part in many ways, and from these to come up with new pieces, which, in order to avoid
the charge of repetition, I will omit.

45
Part Two
vwv

It is a cold, inclement autumn day. Outside, thunder and lightning, and a biter north wind
lashes heavy drops of rain, which beat against the windows; their smooth white faces seem to be
weeping for the difcult time which they now must face. Today, as we used to say in our youth, is a
real caf day, where with irresistible charm the thought goes through your head of the room in which
the blue, fnely curling litle clouds of cigar smoke rest gently and voluptuously on the aromatic scent
of the mocca drink; a day where you experience such infnite well-being, when you can give your-
self up freely and without restraint to conversation in the circle of your trusted friends, and can chat
to your hearts content. There! Something else just went through my head. Today, my dear reader, is
Wednesday, our cofee circle day! Lets forget the caf; instead, we will be right at home and at ease in
the company of the cofee circle. Today something new is taking place there, for several new members
will be inaugurated. So lets be on our way there!
We fnd here only old acquaintances, who you already know from the earlier circle here. Of
todays neophytes, the two who are just now turning to the secretary Alferm are painters; the third,
with the short clipped hair, was formerly a soldier, and now lives of his pension; fnally, the gray-
haired man there at the end of the table, who just now raised his glass, probably to propose a toast
to conviviality, is a very rich landowner, who has nothing to do but live well and always cheerfully
here in the city on the income from his estates. Just like you, my kind reader, the gentlemen who are
gathered here in this circle are hearty, jovial people, whose moto is: Live and let live.
We have scarcely entered when an elderly, corpulent gentleman speaks to us: Ah, good eve-
ning, my dear Herr Julius! It is very kind of you to have brought this gentleman along with you today
(by this he means you, my esteemed companion). Today we are all so well assembled, and are siting
so happily together and are so fond of one another.
14
Now today we will also give free rein to our
humor, but Herr Julius! You must promise to show us a few of your card tricks! Oh! Oh! Hush, you
are too modest! Here! Here! is the Herr Professor, the one who a few days ago was at Grfn Feld-
bergs tea, and yet you will say that you are inexperienced. Ah! That deserves a penalty! Gentlemen!
Here is Herr Julius, who refuses to perform a few litle card tricks. I propose that as a punishment, he
shall now begin in a moment, and that a deck of cards should immediately be given to him. Do you
agree, gentlemen? Agreed! Agreed!
You see, my dear reader, Herr Brunner, who spoke just now, is not going to leave me alone.
So lets abandon ourselves to our fate, and lets show them some of our simple card tricks. In the pro-
cess, you will have an opportunity to see how you can also go to work impromptu.
I declare myself ready, gentlemen, to obey your kind request, yet I must ask you in advance
to devote your complete atention to my hands, by which you cannot be deceived in any way. The
deck that I am geting here is completely unknown to me; hence permit me to look through it a litle,
and to separate out the lower-numbered cards I mean by this the cards from two to six and keep
only 32 cards for myself. You must always try to quickly make yourself familiar with the cards, for
even in life it is an old rule, indeed something Jesuitical, but still good: Trust no one sight unseen.
I have now seen that it is a very simple deck, and I will now atempt to show you in several diferent
ways that I can produce cards that have been taken, looked at and shufed back into the deck, indeed
I can do this even with merely thought of cards.
14 Herr Brunner is quoting from a song lyric, Bundeslied, by a well-known German author of the period, August
von Kotzebue, or Friedrich Germanus (1761-1819), lines 13-14. The lines in German are Wir sitzen so traulich beisammen/ Wir
haben einander so lieb. Some versions of the lyric, including the one here, have frhlich instead of traulich. (Trans.).
46
1. The Friendship of the Cards
I will now shufe the deck and warm up the cards a litle (here you can do the spring a few
times), and I now ask Herr Brunner, to take a card, but not to look at it, but to place it face down in
front of him on the table. Herr P . . . will also be so kind as to take a card, and here, Herr M . . . also
one, and here, right next to me, Herr L . . . as well. I ask you only to put the cards next to each other
face down on the table. Oh, gentlemen! You think perhaps that I have made you take certain cards. I
will immediately try to prove to you that the choice of the cards always lies in your own will alone.
Herr B . . ., which card in sequence do you wish? The eighth! Good! One, two . . . . six, seven and
here is the eighth, please, take it yourself and Herr R. . . ., which card do you want? The ffh! [sic-
should be fourth]. One, two, three, four! Which card do you want? The ffh! So that you certainly
cannot be deceived, as you wish, Herr R. . ., take this ffh card yourself, and Herr F . . . can again
take a card for himself and so also Herr P. . . 8 cards now lie face down here on the table, which have
been taken out of the deck in diferent places and in diferent ways. You will now scarcely believe
me if I assure you that in the company of the cards there is such a friendly alliance that when one of
them is taken in this way, all the remaining seven from the same suit follow afer it. That seems like a
fable to you, gentlemen, but if you will now take the trouble to turn over the cards, you will fnd that
beginning with the seven, all the hearts have been taken in order and my help could not have accom-
plished anything there. This is a mystery which natural forces were not behind.
vwv
While you are supposedly looking at the cards, in order to get to know them and to remove
the lower-numbered ones, you fnd and put together all the hearts and put them in sequence, the
seven frst, on top of the deck. With your remaining words you fll up the time until you are fnished
with it. Now as you are ready to begin having people take cards, you perform the pass in section 1
a., through which these 8 cards come to the middle; you force these one afer the other, in doing this,
however, you must go to work with assurance. If by chance one of the ones following later is taken,
you must, as you already know where the ace lies, put this in its order and then have people take the
cards lying between.
You can also shufe according to section 3 a, nevertheless you must perform the same pass
according to section 1 a before and afer, but in doing so, you should bring a litle variety into the
taking of cards, thus you have someone decide which one in sequence he wishes to take. With this
intention, you perform the pass again, if, for example, you have previously shufed according to
section 3 a, but hold your litle fnger between. For example, if someone wants the eighth card, you
count of seven cards one by one, and at the very moment you ask: Which card in sequence do you
want or So that you certainly will not be deceived, take the following card yourself! you look the
person right in the eyes; by which he is forced to turn his gaze to your face and you perform the pass,
through which the person takes one of the cards which we have put together earlier. If you want to do
this again, you perform the pass again and repeat the same procedure. It is natural for you to hide the
pass behind your speech. You always take the cards you count of from the botom of the deck.
You put all the cards that were taken next to one another because it is more surprising to see
when all the hearts lie next to each other in sequence.
2. The Quick Obedience
May I ask you, Herr von Alferm, to take a card and Herr Professor also one. Herr Haupt-
mann, you will perhaps also join in, and the Herr Doctor will take the last one. Herr Hauptmann!
47
Please now put your card in here for me you see, how it fies (afer you perform the pass and rustle
the cards and then again perform the pass), and Herr von Alferm here, now we will shufe a litle
and Herr Professor, will you be so good as to put your card in here for me, and Herr Doctor per-
haps here under these. Now I will shufe once more and dont think for a moment that anything is
meant by the shufing; for, gentlemen, as you will be able to see for yourselves in a moment, none of
the cards that were taken is likely to be here under these fve, which I take from the top. Isnt that so?
No! Perhaps one of them is here on the botom, which I will show. No, not there either! So none
of the taken cards lie on the top or the botom. Now I will take the deck in my lef hand and will no
longer touch it at all with my right hand. And now, gentleman, you can command where your cards
will appear in the deck: on the top, on the botom or in the middle. Herr Doctor will begin. Where do
you want your card? On the botom! Here it is! (Then you ask the Professor and so on back, in the
reverse order from one in which you collected the cards).
vwv
Every time you have a card inserted in the deck, you perform the pass according to section
1 a and during the collecting, observe in general the whole procedure of Nr. 15 in Part I. The same
procedure is also good for showing the cards on the top and botom. Thus when you take the deck in
your lef hand, all the chosen cards are on top. Now you let this hand hang down at your side, and
cover it somewhat with your thigh.
That when you question people you have to observe the reverse order from the collecting is
very readily apparent. If a card is desired on top, then you must make an arbitrary movement with
your lef hand, as if you were bringing the card there through a sleight if one is desired on the
botom, you pass it there according to Section 1 f; if they say in the middle you perform the pass
according to Section 1 b 1 or 2, during which, however, you keep the deck divided, push the cards
of the top packet over to the right, and show the card as lying in the middle. If you still have one or
more of the chosen cards afer one of the desired cards in the middle, you must afer this (that is, the
card wanted in the middle) has been taken out, perform the pass in Section 1 a, in order to have the
remaining cards on top again, from where you bring them, accordingly to your wish, to the desig-
nated place.
3. The Magnetic Cards
Herr S . . . , I ask you to shufe the deck, but really well, and also to take a card for yourself,
and to ofer a card to Herr P . . . there on the corner as well, and your neighbor siting opposite, Herr
G . . . will also take a card from you. You see, gentlemen, that you can take whatever card you want.
Please now give the deck back to me, and Her P. . ., will you give a card here, Herr G . . . here, now
we will shufe a litle, and Herr S. . ., will you insert your card here. In order to completely take away
from you the thought that I perhaps know a certain order of the cards I will shufe yet again, and
we will now see whether I am lucky in fnding your cards. Herr P., is this your card? No. What, it
isnt? So, Herr S, is this your card? No, not either. What is this? I already seem to have twice made
a mistake, now certainly this, Herr G, is your card? That isnt mine either! Gentlemen! You see me
in embarrassment, I have ventured too far and begun a card trick which my small skill is not enough
for me to perform. Now I have a means with me which perhaps can save me: that is magnetism.
Please give me the suit of your cards. So Herr P. and Herr S have black, Herr S. a red card. So I will
now quickly throw the deck up in the air, and command: One! Two! Three! Now I have your cards
here on my fngers. Is that correct, Gentlemen? Yes indeed, it is!
vwv

48
You have the three cards put in the deck in the now already known way and bring all three
of them on top of each other. Afer shufing follows the pass and now thus the cards lie, if you begin
from the top, in the order frst Herr Ss card, under it Gs and Ps; when you show them, you now
show Herr Ss card to Herr P. It will naturally not be his, but while you appear to place it in the deck
again, you quickly put it under the deck, and indeed with its face side against the face side of the bot-
tom card. Then you show Herr S. Herr Gs card and while you put it again on the deck, you take Herr
Ss card from the botom and show to Herr G.; it will likewise not have been guessed right, and as you
put it on the earlier card on top of the deck, you place it around a fngers breadth sideways from the
lef edge of Herr Gs card. You thus have Ps card underneath Gs and Ss cards on top of the deck.
As you now pretend embarrassment, you quickly put the thumb, index and middle fnger of your
right hand over your mouth, and moisten the tips of these three fngers with your tongue. Now you
press your thumb on the botom card, place the tip of your index and middle fngers on top of the
cards lying next to each other, and press fairly hard on them.
So as you now command: One, two, three! you throw the deck in the air, during which the 3
cards remain stuck to your fngers, while the other cards fall. The question of the suit of the cards is
merely a feint, in order to gain time for the right positioning of your fngers.
4. The Quickly Found Cards
Finding cards that have been taken by means of passes and other such sleights, and then put
in the deck again, is indeed not difcult; I will permit myself to show you, through a litle example,
that it also works without this. I will separate the deck here into two packets at random and ask some
of the gentlemen siting to the right if they will choose from this packet and a few of those siting to
the lef from this packet. So! I only ask two or three! Thats enough! Otherwise we will take too long.
So now you have chosen. I will now take the right packet, and put it here in my lef hand and indeed
on the botom, and the lef packet on top of it. It is necessary, gentlemen, that you note your cards
very well, hence I ask you to look at them once more. As you may still recall, in my lef hand, which
as you have noted, I have not touched with the right hand, the packet of those to the lef lies on top
and the packet of those siting to the right on the botom . With this I will give both of them back and
ask that you shufe the cards you took back in yourselves. Will the gentlemen to the right now give
me their packet thus I will recognize your cards in a moment, for here they are. And in the same
way also those to the lef I now have the honor of giving your cards back to you.
vwv
While the cards are being picked up afer the preceding trick, you have time to put together
all the odd ones that is: ace, seven, nine and jack in one packet and the even ones that is: eight, ten,
queen and king in the other. Now you give the people to the right, for example, the even packet, and
the people to the lef the other packet, and have two or three cards taken from each of them. You now
put both packets in your lef hand, but you separate them by quickly and imperceptibly puting your
ring fnger between them, and immediately let your lef hand fall down to your side. As you ask the
people to look at their cards once more, you perform the pass in section 1 b 1, and through this the
two packets are exchanged. Thus the even cards will be shufed into the odd packet and vice versa.
When you look through the packets, you will discover without much efort the cards that dont ft,
and you immediately put them out on the table as the ones that were taken.
5. The Remaining Card
Up to now I have been so bad that I have made more and more demands on the gentlemen.
That cannot go on, however. I now turn to Herr Secretary and ask him to take a card and shufe it
49
back into the deck himself. Have you shufed it in well? Certainly! Now thats good! Now please
tell me, Herr Secretary, is the card on the botom your card? No! Then is it here on top? Not that
either! Now thats a nice state of afairs; I was so sure I would guess right, and now I dont know
where your card is. So I will put the whole deck here; now kindly divide it into two packets. Which of
the two do you choose? The one to the right! Good, please take it away! Thus there remains this one
for me. Will Herr Secretary now divide this into two packets. Which of the two do you now decide
on for me? Again the one to the right! Just as you wish. So I will take away the one intended for me.
There now remain behind only a few cards, which I will divide into two rows. Will you now select
one of them. I will therefore take all the other cards away, and please keep your fnger on this one.
You will admit, gentlemen, that it is impossible for me to have known which cards would remain, still
less which one of these would be selected. Now, Herr Secretary, name the card which you drew at the
beginning! The queen of spades. Please turn over the chosen card. As you can see, you have chosen
your own card.
vwv
You force a card, and while you are asking whether the deck has been well shufed, and so
on, you fnd it quickly and place it on top of the deck. You now show the botom card, and while you
let your hand sink as if you are embarrassed, you pass the botom card in an instant, and thus can
have the card now lying on top looked at. You make use of the answers to the questions asked accord-
ing to the already known method in such a way that the packet with the botom card always remains.
At last there are only a few cards remaining, so you imperceptibly place this card as the middle card
of the frst row. Now you ask the question: Will you now select one of them for me? In this the card
or row is not named. These words are intentionally ambiguous, so that you can use them in all cases.
For if the person by chance should select his own card, you remove all the remaining cards, as if the
word one had referred to the cards; if however, this is not the case, you have it refer it to the rows,
and remove the one in which the botom card does not lie. Now in order to bring out the chosen card
from the remaining cards, you use the earlier observed system of questioning, where if, for example,
only two cards remain, you ask the question: Which of the two shall remain? which you then use
according to need. The whole thing must be executed quickly. This piece can be performed in an even
more astonishing way with a long or wide card, if you have an opportunity for it. In this case, you
force this card, and without looking at the deck, you feel it and then through the pass make it the top
or botom card.
You could also perform this piece in such a way that you see the botom card, carry out frst
the dividing into two packets and the questioning, look at the cards remaining through this proce-
dure, and then have them shufed. The kind readers power of deduction will devise various similar
tricks on this theme, which, true to my principles, I will not cite here.
6. The Quick Transformation
I will now shufe the deck and declare that I will undertake to shufe it in such a way that
an ace always comes up. We will make the atempt, Herr M. Please look at this card and put it again
here! Which card was it? The ace of spades. We will put this one here on the table. Now I will shufe
again. Herr K., will you look at this card and put it again here? Which card was it? The ace of dia-
monds! We will put this one here next to the other. And so on, until all 4 aces are out, at which you
continue: I have now carried out my task. Thus here we have the four aces. I now permit myself to
wrap them here in this handkerchief, rub them a litle and if we now look at the cards, we will fnd
that the aces have quickly changed into sevens.
vwv
50
You take all the aces and sevens from the deck and put them one afer another in such a way
that there frst comes an ace, then a seven, then again an ace, and so on. You put these cards on the
deck so that an ace is the top card. You now shufe according to section 3 a, through which the order
of these eight cards is not disturbed, and then have the top card taken and looked at, and put back
again as the top card. You now lower both hands with the deck, and, at the moment when you ask
which card it was, you pass the top card according to section 1 e, so that the card which is now lying
face down on the table is a seven, while the spectator thinks it is the ace which he has put on the deck
which has been put on the table. While you ask the question, you look intently at the person, thereby
forcing him to turn his gaze away from your hands to your eyes. You now again have an ace as the
top card, shufe according to section 3 a and go through the same procedure three more times until
the last seven has also been put down. Thus now instead of the four aces, the four sevens lie on the
table.
The same thing can also be done in reverse, in that, at the set-up of the deck, you put down
the seven, ace, seven ace, etc., through which the sevens are then changed into aces. You must use the
precaution that when people look at the top card, they never name it, but this answer must only be
given as the answer to your own question. You can easily understand the reason, that is, to gain time
under the cloak of the question for passing the ace.
7. The Fine Sense of Touch
I now ask you to shufe the cards well, and then give me the deck, and Herr S., will you
please be so kind as to take a card? Oh! Please, it doesnt mater at all which one, and shufe it back in
again. I will see for myself whether the cards have been well mixed. You have made it difcult for me
to fnd yours in it. I will now show a few cards from the top is your card among them? No! Will
you also look at a few from the botom? Not there either! So you have seen, gentlemen, that Herr
Ss card is to be found neither under the top, nor under the botom cards of the deck. Since the deck
is unknown to me, no card can be there which only presents itself to the touch by feeling the surface.
I will put the deck here on the table, and cover it with a handkerchief. And now please decide for me
whether in order to pick out the card I may reach under the handkerchief or whether I shall fnd the
card with the handkerchief.
Oh! only with the handkerchief! That goes without saying. Gentlemen! I have not counted
on you being so hard on me, for in this way the thing is very difcult. Trusting in your indulgence,
however I will venture it. Yes! Yes! Just do it, you big talker! You see gentlemen, its taking me a
long time to fnd it; but wait! I believe I now have it. Here it is! Is it the right one? Yes it is! It is my
card!
vwv
At the moment you get the deck back, you look at the botom card, bring it up through Sec-
tion 1 e and then force it. Now when it has been shufed in, you fnd it again, bring it to the top,
shufe according to Section 3 a and perform the pass on it, but leave your litle fnger between; you
can thus easily show cards from the top and botom and then perform the pass again, through which
the card again lies on top. When it comes to fnding the card, you quickly and imperceptibly grasp
the top card, as soon as you reach for it, and when you have it, you continue to act as if you were
searching around among the others and mixing them.
I will now suppose a case in which the forcing doesnt work; then it is only necessary, instead
of having the person himself shufe in his own card, for you to put it in the deck yourself and im-
51
mediately perform the pass according to section 1 a on it, through which it is again on top, and you
proceed in the stated way.
This trick will be even more astonishing if you perform it with a deck in which there is a wide
or long card; for in this case you force this card and now you actually no longer touch the deck, but
then it is easy to fnd the card by touch with the handkerchief, grasp it and bring it out.
8. The Stubborn Card
Herr Doctor! Now I turn to you. If you please, choose a card and give it back to me. Have you
put it in the middle now? I will now shufe, and please look: is this botom card yours? This isnt it!
So is it the one on top? Not that one either! Please hold the deck now on the corner, between your
thumb and forefnger, but really tightly. I will strike the deck, and you will see how all the cards will
be struck down, only your card will be stubborn, and will remain in your hand. So! Please hold on
tightly. One! Two! Three! Which card did you take? The ace of spades! Turn over the card remain-
ing in your hand, and you will see the ace of spades.

vwv
You have a card taken as desired, or if you have the opportunity for it, you force one, in
which case you dont need the pass, which you must perform afer the insertion in order to bring the
card on top. Then it is shufed according to Section 3 a, and then by means of a suitable pass, as has
already been gone through several times, you show a card from the top or the botom, or you could,
as explained in Nr. 5, do the same thing through a corresponding one-card pass. The card is thus on
top (that is, if you make use of the pass); however, while you approach the person, you pass the card
according to Section 1 e, through which it comes to the botom and you now give the deck face side
down to the person to hold tightly in one hand between his thumb and forefnger. You now deliver
a mighty blow on the deck with the fat of your hand, and all the cards will fy of, while the botom
one naturally remains held tightly between the two fngers.
9. The Litle Magic Thumb
Gentlemen, you will perhaps already have heard of the so-called Litle Thumb, with which
you can make yourself invisible. It is a fairy tale out of dim antiquity. The three squires of the great
Roland, when they had lost their lord, and were wandering in an endless wood, came to a witch,
from whom they sought lodging. This was granted to them, in exchange for the promise that each
one would spend a night with her. Driven by need, the three poor fellows swallowed the biter pill.
As they took their farewell from the young-at-heart old woman, she gave each of them a litle keep-
sake. To the frst a tiny litle white piece of cloth to the second a penny and to the third, the cut-of
thumb of an old glove. Laughing, the squires took the gifs from the generous granny, which they
esteemed very litle and went on their way.
15
Well! Gentlemen! I completely lost myself there in
talking. In order to tell you in brief: The litle cloth became the famous Litle cloth! spread yourself!
The penny constantly brought forth new ones, as soon as you merely rubbed it between your fngers
and the litle thumb made you invisible when you pulled it on the corresponding fnger. This squire
willed it to his son, he to his son, and so on and so forth, until the inheritance came in unbroken own-
ership to one of my ancestors, and from him to me. You see, my family tree is old. Nevertheless, since
at present the Litle Magic Thumb no longer works correctly at making people invisible, I have sent
it to an old magician in the Egyptian Pyramids for re-engineering, and had him adapt it for cards. In
15 The fairy tale cited here, Rolands Knappen, is from Johann Karl August Museus, (1735-1787), Volksmrchen der
Deutschen, frst published in 1782-86. Since the Litle Thumb, in German Dumling, here also fies from person to person, it
could also refer a bird known as the Dumling, or winter wren. In spite of its name and its size, it has nothing to do with the
well-known character of Tom Thumb (Trans.).
52
what way I use it now, gentlemen, you will soon learn. I will ask Herr G to choose a card, put it in
here, and now, Herr Professor, also one please put them in the deck for me (and so on with several
more people). Now we will set the deck aside.
And now my Litle Magic Thumb come fying,
And let the chosen cards
Travel among the company,
From one gentleman to another.
Now, Herr G. what card did you choose? The jack of clubs, wasnt it? Now without you hav-
ing noticed anything of it, even the slightest, this jack, with the help of the Litle Thumb, has been
with all the gentlemen, for if you will communicate with each other, you will discover that you all
drew the jack of clubs.
vwv
You force a card, in our example, the jack of clubs. Now when you have the taken card
inserted, you keep your litle fnger there, and force the same card again, and continue in this way
as ofen as you like. If you want to shufe in between, this is done according to section 3 a, afer you
have previously brought out the card to be forced through the pass in section 1 a, and then the same
pass follows again, so that you can force it again.
That you must force with assurance is easy to explain. If you are unsuccessful at it and a few people
do not take this card, if there are already more than two of them, you can perform the following trick.
However, if there are only two such persons, you have them step aside and do another trick with
them.
10. The Granted Wish
. . . is the best makeshif for the case in which more than two people did not take the forced card.
That is, you have these people hold on to their cards, then collect them and perform the frst part of
Nr. 15 in Part I: The Quick Arithmetic, only with the diference that you give out all the cards in the
way stated there; while in that case the card of the Frau Grfn had to be disposed of, for it was in the
candle. For the method of performance already dealt with there, I ask the friendly reader to turn back
a few pages, and to follow the rules there.
11. The Lucky Throw
Herr von Brunner, may I ask you to take a card for me, shufe it back in yourself, and I will
now take the liberty of shufing it once more myself. And now I will put six cards from the top on
the table, and six from the botom, and please look and see, Herr von Brunner, whether your card
is among these twelve. No? Then I will put all these together again. Now if you will endeavor to
examine that door, you would certainly fnd it difcult to expect it to be in collusion with me, or to be
prepared in any way. I will now throw the deck at this door, and the card taken must remain hanging
on it while all the remaining ones fall. One! Two! Three! Herr von Brunner, there you see your card.
vwv
You force a card the best is the nine of spades have it shufed back in, then fnd it and
bring it to the top, shufe according to section 3 a and show the card in the already known way, how-
ever, this time you put it on the table. While this is being looked at, you immediately perform the pass
53
and right away quickly pass the card that comes on top in this way according to section 1 e, which
now makes it the last card. Now, however, before you entered the company, you have put in your
pocket a few quite small nails [or tacks] with sharp points and small heads. Now as soon as you have
brought out the cards, you quickly grasp one of these nails and hold it concealed in your hand. You
take the 12 cards together and place them on top of the deck. Now you direct the spectators atention
to the examination of the door, and while you continue to speak, you stick the nail through the bot-
tom card, with the head on the face side, and you must try to prety much hit the middle pip, so that
the blackness of the nail head is less noticeable, and then put the face side to the face side of the cards
lying before it. The whole thing must be done cleverly and quickly. You now raise the deck over your
head and hurl it straight at the wall with a powerful throw, so that the point of the nail penetrates the
wood and the card appears suspended on the door. Earlier, however, you must look, without being
seen, to see if the door is made of hard wood; if it is, the nail will not penetrate and the trick will fail.
You then take the card down yourself, quickly remove the nail and smooth the hole made with your
thumb in order to make it unnoticeable.
12. Card Mathematics
I will now shufe the deck, although that no longer seems to be necessary, for the cards have
been mixed up well enough by the throw. Herr von Alferm, I ask you to take a card, and not look at it,
but put it in front of you on the table. The same thing holds good also for all the following cards. So,
Herr Hauptmann, will you also choose a card and put it next to that of Herr von Alferm. Now I will
shufe a litle, so that we again come to other cards. Herr S., please take a card for yourself and here
still another one. These two go next to Herr Hauptmanns card. And now I will also trouble Herr D. to
choose a card, and Herr M. as well. This pair goes next to the earlier ones.
Now I will explain that because in each branch of mathematics there must be equations, they
must also appear in our card mathematics. That is, an ace is equal to 14 points, a face card is 10 and
the remaining cards count as many points as they have pips on them. I will now turn away and with-
out being able to see it, I ask you to look at one of these packets, note the sum of the pips which are
found on the cards in it, and then put these cards again in their place. So, I will ask! Its done now!
Now I have here three litle bone dice, which I frst ask you to examine closely. Isnt it true that they
are quite simple litle dice that have not been tampered with? I will now ask you to throw them, add
up the spots on the top of the dice, then add to this the sum of those on the opposite side; thus exactly
the same sum has been thrown as the sum of the cards in the packet, and this is the mathematical
theorem proposed: The eyes of the dice are to the pips of the card, as the number of the dice is to the
number of the section. Please tell me: which packet was chosen? The third! You see, here are also
three dice. A theorem has been proven. And what is the sum of the spots on the dice? Twenty-one!
And this is also the sum of the pips on the cards. The theorem is correct, quod erat demonstrandum.
16

vwv
While the cards are being picked up afer the previous piece, you have gathered 4 aces and
2 sevens and put them together in the following order. First, 2 aces, then 1 ace and 1 seven and then
again 1 ace and 1 seven. You now put these cards on the deck face down, so that they lie in reverse
order, and the seven frst presents itself, afer this follows the ace, then the seven and ace and then
the two aces. This you have done while the cards are being picked up. You now shufe once more ac-
cording to Section 3 a, now force these cards one afer the other, and then, as can be gathered from the
speech, put them face down next to one another, and indeed the last four in pairs as follows:
16 Latin for that which was to be demonstrated (Trans.).
54
I II III IV
Seven Ace Seven, ace Ace, ace
Before or while you give the explanation, you quite casually put the cards in order a litle,
but in doing so, you arrange them unnoticed in this way, so that each packet lies a very litle bit lower
than the previous one, that is as in Fig. XV.
You now turn again to the company, and you will instantly know which of them has been
taken out of its order. You now have four dice on you. You now bring out as many dice as the number
in sequence of the card in the section that you have noticed has been moved out of its order. In our
example you had seen the cards in the following arrangement: Fig. XVI.
Thus you instantly know that the third packet has
been put out of order. Consequently you take out three dice.
The dice are common bone ones. Now, however, the spots on
one side are always so marked that two opposite sides always
number seven, otherwise the die is not genuine. The cards,
however, have been forced in such a way that one die cor-
responds to the frst section, two to the second, and so on. Thus the sum of the pips on the cards will
naturally agree with the spots on the die. In our example, the ace and seven give 21, and 3 dice, if you
add the top and botom spots, also equal 21.
13. Correct Guess
Will you now shufe the deck? Thank you. Herr Doctor,
please quickly think of a card. Yes. Which suit is it? A club!
Ah! You have chosen a very gloomy color and it will be very difcult for me to guess the thought of
card. But we will make an atempt. Which card did you think of? The Ace of clubs! You see, Herr
Doctor, I have correctly guessed your thought; for when you turn over the card which I have put here
on the table, you will see that it is the card you thought of. A famous physician once said to me that
this is connected to magnetism, which resides in the human body.
vwv
You put the ace from the suit that is given face down on the table, then put the king on top
of the deck and the seven on the botom. These are the three most obvious cards of a suit. When you
quickly and suddenly ask someone to think of a card, you can assume ninety times out of a hundred
that one of these three cards will be thought of. Afer this brief preparation, you ask for the thought
of card. In the case we have gone through in our example, if the card is seven, you say: you see,
I knew your card in advance, for here it is, and as you do so you show the botom card. If it is the
king, you could perhaps use the following words. So that you dont need to endeavor for long, I
will say that your card is already lying here, and as you do this, you have him remove the top card.
In this two cases, you actually make no mention of the card that has been put on the table, but quite
casually insert it again into the deck. You can continue this piece, if you want, in the following way.
14. Continuation of the Preceding
Gentlemen! I will furnish you with proof that I am able to observe all of your thoughts with
fair certainty. For example, will Herr K. take a card, then for variety another one. Please note both of
them well. Will you now put one of them in here like this and the second, for example, here. Now
55
a litle shufing, but thats enough. I will now put aside a card, which by chance is at hand, shufe
once more, and also put aside a second one. Now Herr K, I ask you to quickly drop one of these two
cards from your thoughts and the one lying to the lef is the one you kept. Which was it that you
dropped? The jack of hearts! Here it is, and the second one? The nine of spades! Here it is. As you
see, gentlemen, I have kept my promise and not said too much.
vwv
In this example, the frst card taken was the nine of spades, the second the jack of hearts.
The frst one you have now put in a desired place in the deck, and as you close the deck, but only in
appearance, then again remove the one packet, the second card will be put right on the frst, while
the spectator thinks he has put two cards in diferent places in the deck. You now shufe accord-
ing to Section 3 a, and thus put the jack of hearts down, then you shufe again in the same way, put
down the nine of spades, and put this one to the lef next to the frst, both cards naturally face side
up. You can now presume with almost complete certainty that of the two cards the second one will be
dropped and the frst will be kept. The remaining is obvious from the speech. I have ofen repeated
this piece with the same person 5-6 times and have always been right in this assumption. If you have
by chance forced two cards, then you can make it even more surprising, in that you no longer touch
the deck, but, afer you have called on the person to drop one card from his mind and to keep the
other, you can resume your speech in the following way: We will now suppose that I hold a card in
each hand, so I will decide that the one dropped is in the right hand, the one kept is in the lef hand,
that is, in my right hand I have and you give the name of the second card taken, and in my lef
hand is , followed the name of the frst card, which will certainly arouse astonishment.
15. The Strange Subtraction
Herr Professor! I ask you to divide the deck into two packets and to count how many cards
one of them holds. Now, what more? Please give this packet to me. I will put it here on the table
again and not touch it any longer. Herr Professor, will you now say whether you wish to have more
or fewer cards in this packet? More! By how many, two or four? Four! Good, then I will take four
cards away from the remaining packet and put them on it. Yes, you already want to laugh at me. That
would certainly be no art. But please! Bear with me! We will bring about the addition through a sub-
traction. Give me, Herr Professor, four cards from your packet; hence there are now four fewer here.
Now I ask you to keep this packet tightly enclosed in your two hands I will now wrap your hands
with a cloth, and command: one, two, three! So you now again have four cards in your hand. How
many cards did you have in the beginning? Eleven! Four from that is seven, and yet you must now
again have all eleven cards.
When two cards more are wished for, you take away two, afer which there will always still
be two more. If however if the person says Four less! the following words would perhaps not be
unfting:
Ah! You wish to have fewer! Then you are to be called a rarity; for everyone wants more. So
let us take four cards away from the packet. If right now there were fewer there, that is but a natural
consequence. I ask you to hold on to your cards tightly, I will now glide my cards over your hand
One! Two! Three! And the four cards must already be found there again. I will ask you to count
them again. (The same is done with two cards, only instead of four cards, two are taken away).
vwv
While the spectators are still talking about the preceding efect, or at another suitable mo-
ment, you quickly palm four cards in your right hand, in the manner described in no. 7 of the prac-
56
tical advice, and make yourself something to do with the handkerchief, in order to cleverly keep
this from the eyes of the spectators, but without having it be obvious. At the very moment, that the
counted packet is given to you, reach for it quite casually with your right hand and in this way put
the four palmed cards unnoticed on it. And with this the trick is already done. The wrapping of the
spectators hand with a handkerchief as well as the striking of his hand with the removed cards are
mere feints to make people believe that this is the moment the sleight is used.
16. Efective Pressure
Herr von Alferm, I will ask you to shufe. Thank you very much. l will ask you to take a
card and to shufe it back into the deck yourself. Herr von Alferm, have you shufed it really well? I
will now show you these top cards. Is your card here among them? No! Then I will put them again
in their place. Perhaps it has traveled to the botom. Please look at these! Its not there either! Since
the card is neither on the top or the botom, we will put the deck here on the edge of the table. Will
Herr von Alferm kindly come up here and stand next to me. I now ask you to put your hand, as I now
do, right fat on the deck, and when I command three! to press hard on it. One! Two! Three! Ah! Ah!
You have actually crushed the whole deck! For you have pressed one card completely through the
table for me, and if I am not mistaken, it is your card.
vwv
You force a card, and while you are asking whether it has been well shufed, you fnd the
forced card and place it on top of the deck. Now you perform the pass according to Section 1 a, keep
your litle fnger between, show a few cards from the top and botom, and again perform the pass,
through which the chosen card once more lies on top. Now you put the deck on the edge of the table,
and while the person is coming up to you, you bring your right hand to your mouth and moisten its
inner surface with your tongue. You have the person stand right next to you, because he could other-
wise see into your hand. Now you show him what he is to do, and in doing so, press your moistened
hand on the deck, and immediately bring your hand under the table, where the still adhering card is
brought with it. The whole must be performed in a quick and lively way.
17. The Obedient Packets
Herr P., if you please, choose a card, and Herr G. also, just as I also turn to you, Herr R., with
the request to take a card for yourself. I now ask you, Herr R., to put your card in for me, and for the
sake of variety, Herr G. can put his in here. You see, gentlemen! How the cards fy by one another.
(Here you can spring the cards a few times). Ah! Herr P., you still have your card. Quickly in here. I
will shufe once and now divide the deck into three packets, and indeed the one on the lef belongs
to Herr P., the middle one to Herr G., and this one on the right to Herr M. Will you now tell me, Herr
G, in this packet which has been chosen for you, is the botom card yours? No! So it is certainly
the top one here? Not that one either! So with you my art doesnt work. I will make a new atempt
with Herr M. What? In your packet too, neither the top nor the botom card is yours! There, I will just
quickly look again, to see whether my bad luck is following me so insistently. Herr P., this packet here
is yours. Will you please look at this botom card; that is certainly yours! Not at all! But now this
top one will bring me out of my embarrassment, [by allowing me to] guess at least one card, for this
is your card! Not that one either! In none of the three packets, then, is the card you took on the top
or the botom. And although I will now no longer touch the cards, nevertheless on my orders in all
the packets, which in a moment I will cover with a handkerchief, the chosen cards must be the botom
ones. I will lif the handkerchief again and gentlemen, please turn over the packets belonging to you,
and you will fnd that they have been completely obedient to my orders.
57
vwv
You have three cards chosen at random you could also force them. Then you collect them
in the already known way, and bring it about through suitable passes that all three of them come one
afer another. If you want to have a card put on top, you must naturally have previously performed
the pass. In order to bring variety to the shufing, in this trick you can shufe according to section 3
b, through which the cards which were taken and those which are on top both remain together. Now
when you divide the deck on the table into three packets face side down and lying across from lef
to right, so that the top cards are in the third packet to the right you quickly put the frst of the top
cards, that is the card of the third person collected from you, on the packet lying to the lef, the second
on the middle one and the third remains where it is. This must be done very quickly, however. As
the cards are now on the packet, you choose one of them for each of the persons. The procedure for
showing remains the same for all the packets, that is, the cards taken by the persons are on top of the
packet. You now lif it up, show the botom card and while people are astonished that you have not
guessed right, lower the deck with both hands, quickly pass the top card, thus it will not be the card
taken either, for this is already lying on the botom, and then you put the packet aside on the table,
naturally always face down.
18. Touch

Herr Secretary, I now ask you to shufe the deck and then will you hand me 10-12 cards, it
is completely immaterial which ones. I will now form the cards into a fan and ask you to touch one
with your fngertip. I will now remove the cards which lie before the touched section, and then push
the remaining ones together. Thus the touched one must be the botom card of the packet. I now ask
you, however, to give your complete atention to my hands. So please once more look closely at my
fngers. Please now look at this touched card and shufe it back into the deck yourself.
I will now take 10 or 12 cards out, spread them out again in a fan, and you may now reach
where you wish, you will always touch the card from earlier. We will observe the same procedure,
thus did you touch this card? I will again remove the card lying before you and push the remaining
ones together. Which card did Herr Secretary take earlier? The queen of hearts! Here it is.
vwv
You quickly look at one of the cards you have received. Now when you, with the help of the
other cards, spread them out in one hand, for example, in the right one, and face side down, you put
the card you have seen under the spread-out ones, so that it comes to lie directly on your middle
fnger, and can be guided by it at will in any direction and is covered by the fan. So you approach a
person, holding the fan facing down and ask him to touch a card from it. One of the middle ones will
certainly be touched. Now while you are telling what you will do, you guide the card lying on your
middle fnger right under the touched one. At the very moment you remove the card lying before it,
you quickly put the other card together with it, so that the card you looked at will be the botom one,
and you can then easily have it shufed in. You bring this card under the cards which you yourself
then take, and follow the same procedure.
19. With the Help of a Needle
Yes gentlemen! Its not easy to hide a card from me so that I will not fnd it . For example,
Herr Doctor, will you take a card and shufe it back in yourself. Well shufed! Really! I will now
shufe myself as well. Please gentlemen, look and see whether the card taken is under these cards
which I took from the top. It isnt, is it? I also believe it will be difcult for me to fnd the card on the
58
botom. You are thus convinced that the card taken is neither on top nor on the botom of the deck. I
will now put the deck of cards here, and scater them with my hand; the cards thus lie, as you see, in
the greatest disarray. I will cover them with a handkerchief. May I ask for a needle; thank you very
much. And now, gentlemen, I will fnd the card with the needle through the cloth and spear it.
vwv
You force a card, and while you are looking to see whether the cards have been well shufed,
you pick it out again in the deck and bring it to the top. Then, afer performing the pass, during
which you put your fnger between, you show the top and botom cards, and while you call atention
to the fact that the chosen card can be found neither on the top nor on the botom, you have per-
formed the pass and then brought the chosen card to the top. You then put the deck on the table and
scater the cards with your hand, yet you pay close atention to where the top card comes to lie. You
can also do the same thing intentionally, for example, put the card so that there are no cards around
it. You thus note the position of this card, and even when you have covered it with the handkerchief
you can still fnd the card with the point of the needle and spear it on it.
20. Vice Versa
May I ask you, Herr Hauptmann, to shufe the deck, to keep a card from it for yourself, and
to ofer one to Herr Professor as well? I now ask for the deck. Herr Hauptmann, will you put your
card in here, and Herr Professor may I also ask for your card? Now we will shufe very well. So
that we wont take too long, will Herr Hauptmann choose whatever card he desires, but not look at it
and hold it covered in his hand and the same also Herr Professor. Gentlemen! Dont suspect any-
thing special. It is a very simple joke. Although I absolutely do not know the cards, for I did not have
the deck in my hands at all when the choice was made, and even though on top of this the deck was
shufed, I have nevertheless brought it about that the two gentlemen have taken each others cards.
Herr Hauptmann! Which card was yours? The eight of hearts! Herr Professor, turn over the card
which you have in your hand, and you will see the eight of hearts. And likewise Herr Hauptmann
has the card of Herr Professor.
vwv
You bring the already taken cards on top of each other in the already known way, then shufe
according to section 3 a, and thus in our case the Professors lies frst from the top, and under it Herr
Hauptmanns card. You now force Hauptmann to take the Professors card and vice versa the Profes-
sor Hautpmanns card, and in this way the trick is accomplished.
21. True Devotion
Herr Secretary, may I ask you to shufe the deck and now give it to me? As I saw just now
by looking through the deck, Herr Secretary you have not shufed very well; permit me then to help
you out a litle. Now I ask you not to look at the card you have taken, but to put it face down on the
table. Will you please, Herr Secretary, also kindly choose a card, and please another one as well? Now
I will shufe again, and ask you again to choose another card, which one it is, as always, is quite
immaterial the frst one that comes along, and to conclude quickly, another one Gentlemen! You
will surely have already heard that inclinations are thought to be certain things which have such a
powerful infuence on us, that we are not able to resist them, and they make us bow so involuntarily
under their scepter that they have an invisible sway on our wills. It is sad then, when such an inclina-
tion is turned to a harmful object, which is absolutely not worthy of the interest that we feel in it. But
whoever has such a tender inclination as the Herr Secretary does, he is only to be called lucky and
to be envied. You will fnd it difcult to believe that the power of an inclination extends even to the
59
harmless cards, and yet the proof lies as clear as day, for the Herr Secretary, compelled by a nameless
something, has taken all four queens
17
out of the deck. That is what I call an indestructible devotion.
vwv
During the previous piece you will certainly have found a good-natured, even-tempered
person in the company, one frst, whom you can turn to with assurance for the forcing, and second,
who possesses the good nature to not be ofended at a joke. In our company, for example, this is the
Secretary. While you profess to be looking through the deck to see whether it has been well shufed,
you put the 4 Queens together on top of the deck, then shufe according to Section 3 a, and quickly
force two queens, one afer another, then shufe once more in the same way, afer you have previ-
ously performed the pass as in Section 1 a, and also force the last two queens.
22. Echapp [French=Escaped]
Gentlemen! I ask you to take a good look at the 4 queens, for they posses a magical quickness;
under your hands they slip away from you. Please, take the 4 queens together and place them for me
here on top of the deck, and now, Herr Secretary, please blow on the deck. You have seen, gentlemen,
I have neither performed a pass, nor otherwise done anything with the cards, besides, it would have
been impossible to be so quick; and yet, if you remove the top 4 cards, you will fnd the 4 queens have
already escaped. Here are the 4 cards! As I said, they know how to escape.

vwv

During the previous trick, while the spectators are busy turning over the 4 cards and looking
at them, you palm 4 cards in your right hand according to Nr. 7 of the practical advice, and reach out
with your lef hand to have the queens put on the deck, and at the moment that you take it in your
right hand, in order to hold it out to someone to blow on it, you have already replaced the 4 palmed
cards on it. The 4 queens then quite naturally disappear. You quickly put down the 4 cards, however,
and immediately go on to something else.
23. The Card Factory
Gentlemen! Although I am afraid that I have already bored you with my card tricks, I am
nevertheless take the liberty of performing a procedure [to show] how you can quickly change one
card into another. May I trouble you, Herr von Brunner, to choose a card, and, I ask you, one more?
Will you note these quite well. Now I ask you for the frst, and the second, for example, we will put
here. I will shufe, although that would not be required, for, as you can see, both cards have been
placed in quite diferent places in the deck. Now I have a request to make: Herr von Brunner, will you
keep one of the two cards in your mind and drop the other one. I will undertake to guess one of them.
Now, have you already done that? Yes! So is this the card which you have in mind? No! What?
No? So we will put it aside. Which card is that? The nine of Clubs! and now I ask you to tell me,
what the second card was? The Jack of Spades! In such cases, I know how to help myself. For I will
now take the nine of clubs, command: One! Two! Three! and rub it here on the edge of the table, so
the jack of spades has now been manufactured out of it.
vwv
You have put two cards on top of each other in the way that has already been explained sev-
eral times. Perform the pass according to Section 1 a and then shufe according to Section 3 a. Now,
17 In German the queens in a deck of cards are known as the Damen, which means ladies (Trans.).
60
while you make the request, you quickly pass the two cards lying on top according to Section 1 e, one
afer another, and have the frst, which you have passed down, protrude somewhat on the narrow
side, so that, if your fngers were not lying on it, Figure XVII would be shown. In order to conceal
this, however, the fngers of both hands, as can be seen in Figure XVIII, are placed over it. In this
position you will now show the botom card to the person, and in doing so, you say that this is one
of the cards. It is quite immaterial whether you are right nor not, for it is not a question of guessing
here. In that case, you let your hand fall and say: Let us put it aside, in doing so, however, you take
the lightly gripped card already arranged, protruding sideways, and put it down, and in this way
the exchange is already accomplished. In order to mislead the spectators, you bring the deck close to
the edge of the table and as you say Three! you take the card lying face down on the
table and run it quickly over the edge of the table and the deck, so that it seems as if
the true sleight is being performed at that moment, while this is actually only a feint.
In order not to tire the reader, I have gone through this case here only with one per-
son. It goes without saying, however, that this piece will be much more interesting if
you perform it with several people. The procedure remains exactly the same. When the cards are put
back, the reverse order of the collecting will be observed,
and always only the two cards of one person are passed
down, the change is performed with his cards, and only
then do you go on to the next. With a quick and clever
performance, this trick will create tremendous astonish-
ment.
24. In Flight
Performing a pass and all that is very easy, but throwing a deck in such a way that a single
card turns over in fight, that, believe me, is a great art. Oh! You dont believe that, gentlemen! It is the
simplest thing in the world. Herr R., will you, for example, take a card, shufe it back in yourself and
then return the deck to me? And now quickly, gentlemen, is the top card yours? No! The botom
one? Not that either! Now I will throw the deck on the table and you see, Herr R.s card alone has
turned over in fight.
vwv
You force a card, pick it out, put it on top of the deck, perform the pass and keep your litle
fnger in between. Now you show the top and botom cards, on which you again perform the pass
and in doing so, push the top card out somewhat, perhaps about half an inch sideways to the right.
Now, grasping the deck on the top and botom of the narrow side, you let it fall down directly on the
table, where now the top card lies turned over. If you have a chance to get your hands on a deck with
a long or wide card in it, this piece can be performed in an even more surprising way, in that you do
not need to pick out the card, but at the moment when you take the deck, you immediately feel the
long or wide card, and perform the pass on it, according to section 1 a, through which it becomes the
top card, so that you only need to push it a litle bit sideways and in this way the performance of this
piece is accomplished almost instantaneously.
25. Predestination
Herr von Alferm! For the conclusion I ask you once more to shufe the deck. And now will
Herr P. be so kind as to take a card but not look at it, likewise also Herr R. and now you, Herr von
Alferm? Through the cards taken by the two gentlemen, your card must now be pre-determined in
detail, and in fact: the frst card gives the suit of yours, the second its name. Herr P. which suit is your
card? Hearts! and what is the name of your card, Herr R? Ace! Consequently, Herr von Alferm
must have the ace of hearts. Please show it.
61
vwv
You put the card, which you are going to force, in our case, the ace of hearts, on top of the
deck, then another ace on top of it, and on this now goes any heart. This must be done quickly when
you get the deck back afer the shufe. You now force frst the card that gives the suit, and then the
one for the name and last the third card.
vwv
We have arrived at the conclusion of this part, without, however, thereby intending to say
that the limits for this kind of trick have been reached. We wanted, through these few efects, to plant
a few litle seeds in the fruitful ground of the card trick, which, through their shoots, bear the seeds
for many other tricks. May it be reserved to he ingenuity and patience of the kind reader to cultivate
the saplings and forgive the planter, if here and their a seed unintentionally slips from his hand and
remains resting in the ground without fruit.
We now go to the third part, and in it we want to say a few things about the kind of tricks
that can be performed without any kind of sleight and hence are within the reach of everyone who is
not dedicated and enthusiastic enough to overcome the small difculties of a few passes and shufes.
62
Part Three
We have also included in this classifcation a few pieces which can be performed with pre-
pared cards or decks, and they follow here, without us keeping them in a strict order, so that they
wont become monotonous; we believe that their simplicity will be the best shield against the accusa-
tion that they are actually not very interesting. In order not to be long-winded, we will put only the
performance of these pieces here, since no special cases occur where you have to cloak the sleights
you are to perform by words, or keep the atention of the spectators away from your hands.
Nr. 1 The Transparent Cards
Since this trick can be performed with 3 and also with 4 cards, we will speak frst about deal-
ing with the frst instance. You must have 3 cards chosen from the deck. Yet this must be done while
you have absented yourself, afer the following explanation has been given. The ace is worth eleven
points, each face card 10 points and the remaining ones as many points as pips are to be found on
them, for example, the eight 8, the nine 9, and so on. The cards that have been taken will be placed on
the table face side up. While they now count each remaining card in the deck as one point, they [put
cards] on each of the cards lying on the table counting from their value up to ffeen. If for example,
the frst card is an ace, they [put] a card with the face side down on it, counting it as 12, for the ace is
worth 11, then 13 and so on. If it is a face card, they continue counting with 11. With a non-face
card for example, with a seven, they count the frst one put down on it as 8, previously however the
sum of the pips of the card lying on the botom must be added. Everything that has been said up to
now is to be done by someone from the company while you go aside. When everything is done in this
arrangement, you have them tell you how many cards remain lef over, and now you are immediately
able to give the sum of the cards lying on the botom. That is, if 3 cards are taken, you only have to
add 16 in your mind to this sum; this gives the number in question.
If 4 cards are taken, you add 32 to the number of the remaining cards. For greater clarity, here
is an example. The cards taken were: the eight of hearts, the king of hearts, the ace of clubs. If this has
been done according to the instructions, 13 cards remain; 16 added to this gives 29. And this is the
sum of the 3 cards, then: eight plus ten plus eleven makes 29.
2. A Memory Trick
Eight people take part in this trick. That is, you have previously shufed the deck, and then
you have each person choose two cards and note them well. Then, beginning with the eighth person,
you collect the cards. Thus, if you hold the whole packet in your hand face side down, you have the
frst persons cards on top. Now you put these cards in 4 rows face down on the table in doing so
you have to observe the simple rule that the frst pair of cards is put frst in the frst and fourth rows,
and the next pair in the second and third rows in the form of a cross [i.e. an X]. Thus the cards of the
persons will lie according to the following diagram:
1 3 4 2

5 7 8 6
6 8 7 5
2 4 3 1
63
The cards lie face side down. According to the method taught up to now in the books which
discuss card tricks, the cards must only be put face up for it, and then each person is asked in which
row his card lies; when done this way, the only interest that this trick can have, that is, the exhibi-
tion of a good memory, collapses. In the procedure given in these cards, however, to begin with. no
one sees where his card lies, and you need only ask who wishes his card, since you are immediately
able to put back the cards; for you know that the frst persons cards lie under the two points 1 1, the
second persons under 2 2, and so on; in this way, the performance appears more difcult in the eyes
of the spectators.
The piece can be performed on an even greater scale if each of the 8 persons chooses 3 cards,
where you collect the cards in the same way, that is, the cards of the eighth person frst, and when
they are put down, they present themselves according the following diagram:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
2. 3. 7. 8. 4. 1.
1. 4. 6. 7. 5. 2.
8. 7. 8. 3. 6. 5.
Since here three cards go with one person, the observation of the diagonals can no longer be
maintained, and my kind reader must make a litle bit of efort to commit the preceding numerical
series to memory.
3. The Last Card
If the reader will be so kind as to go a few pages back, he will fnd in the last sentence of the
explanation of the trick given in Nr. 5 of Part Two, the outline of a trick which can be performed with-
out any sleight. That is, you have the deck shufed by one of the persons, and as you take it back,
you turn it in such a way that you can see the botom card, whereupon you put the deck on the table,
have it divided into two packets, and now use the system of questions described in Nr. 5, in which
you aim to have the card that remains be the botom card you saw, which you now have inspected,
marked and shufed back in the deck, at which you can easily pick it out.
4. Which Card in Sequence?
You ask a person to note one of the cards which you will put down, and at the same time,
which one in sequence it is. You then take the deck face down in your lef hand, and with your right
hand put the cards on the table, one afer another, but face up. You then continue and say that if a
card and its number have already been noted, then, whenever he likes, he can say stop. When this
happens, you put the cards on top of the deck again in their old order, that is, face down. You put
the deck behind your back and ask the person to say which card in sequence he wants his card to be,
yet [it must be] a number which is higher than the one in which the card was when it was noted. If
you now receive the answer, it shall be the eleventh one, then holding the deck behind your back,
you quickly put one card afer another, and begin to count with the frst card being 2, and continue
to count up to the desired number; in our case up to eleven. Now you put the counted-of cards back
again on the remaining ones, bring the whole deck forward and now explain that the person, begin-
ning with the top card, should continue to count from the number at which the noted card was put
down previously, then he will fnd his card at the desired number, that is, if he for example had ear-
lier noted the third card, then he will now, as he puts down the top card, say: four, then fve, and
so on up to eleven, where his card will appear according to his wish.
64
5. The Pre-Determined Number
You have someone state how many cards you are to put down on the table. You put this
number down next to one another, in the order: 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . . etc.
Now you explain that someone from the company should note one of these cards, and at the
same time, he is to count which number in sequence from the lef end that is as you put the cards on
the table it is; then he has to begin to count, but only to himself, so that you cannot hear it, with the
next number from the card lying on the right corner, and continue towards the lef. When he comes
to the lef end, he has to begin again with the right one and so on, up to the number which you have
given him. Then without knowing the card which he has noted, you will determine exactly at which
number he again comes to the card. It is always the number which is twice as many plus one greater
than the number of cards lying on the table. If, that is, 9 cards have been put down, he must have
counted up to 19, under which number the noted card will again appear.
6. Quickly Found
Depending on whether you are going to perform this trick with 3, 4, or 5 persons, you take a
number of cards that is identical to the square of the number of persons: that is, with 3 persons you
take 9, with 4 persons 16, and with 5, 25 cards. Here we will go through an example with 4 persons.
You give the frst person 4 cards with the request that he note one of them, then take all four back
again, and put them in your lef hand face side up. Then you also give the second person four cards
with the same request and put these cards on the frst ones. On the second persons cards, then, go
those of the third and then the fourth. From the whole packet you now put the frst four cards, face
side up, one by one next to one another on the table, and these are the four cards of the fourth person,
then on these, likewise one afer another, go the next four, and these are those of the third person,
then those of the second person and last those of the frst. You now take the frst of the four packets
in your lef hand, face side towards the spectators, then spread it out in a fan, so that the botom card,
that is, the one of the fourth person, is now the one found on the lef end; before it comes those of the
third person, then those of the second and at the very end those of the frst person. Now when you
show one packet afer another in this way to all four persons, and ask each one separately whether
his card is found in this fan, then you know when an afrmative answer results, in an instant which
it is, and are in a position to give it out. With 25 cards, it is exactly the same case, only here you hand
each person 5 cards, and he has to note one of them.
7. In Rows
You can achieve the same end with rows. We will go through this case with 4 persons. That is,
you put down 4 rows, in each row 4 cards, so that the diagram looks like the following:
1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.
9. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
You now ask the frst person to note a card from the frst diagonal row, that is, as the cards lie
across from right to lef, the second person from the second row, and so on. Now you put together,
65
but quickly, the cards of that diagonal row, going from right to lef, and beginning at the right end of
the fourth row. Card 16 goes on 15, these two on 14, then these on 13 and these 4 go on 12 and so on.
Then you quickly put the cards on the table, face side up, from the top down, in rows under
one another where the cards now lie in the following order:
1. 5. 9. 13.
2. 6. 10. 14.
3. 7. 11. 15.
4. 8. 12. 16.
Now you ask each person in which diagonal row his card lies; without, however, keeping
to the order in which you called upon them when the cards were noted, since otherwise the connec-
tion would be obvious. In each diagonal row the persons card is the same number in sequence as the
person is. That is, if the third person answers: My card is in the second diagonal row, it is the third
card from the lef across. The collecting of the cards and puting them in vertical rows must take place
very quickly. With 25, everything is exactly the same.
8. Something Similar
With puting cards in rows, a similar piece can be performed with one person. That is, you
put down an odd number of horizontal rows, that is, 3 or 5, and in each of them the same number of
cards. Here is an example with 25 cards:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
When you put them down, you maintain the advantage that you put each card of the 2nd,
3rd and following rows with its top end on the botom end of the one located above it, in order to be
able to push them together more quickly later on. Now you ask a person to note a card from a vertical
row, that is, as the cards lie from the top down, and also immediately ask in which of the rows it lies.
You now push together the vertical rows one afer the other from the top down, and place them face
down in your lef hand, as you do so, you put down the row from which the person noted the card in
the middle. If, for example, a card has been chosen from the fourth vertical row, you frst collect the
frst and second, then the fourth, then the third and ffh rows, turn the whole packet over in your lef
hand, so that the back side is on top, and now put the cards by fves in diagonal rows face side up,
where the cards now lie as follows:
66
1. 6. 11. 16. 21.
2. 7. 12. 17. 22.
3. 8. 13. 18. 23
4. 9 14. 19. 24.
5. 10 15. 20. 25.
And now you ask the person in which vertical row his card now lies, and the answer will
enable you to immediately give the card. If, for example, he says: In the third vertical row, it is the
fourth from the top in this row; since the frst time this person chose a card from the fourth vertical
row. It is good, however, when the answer is received, not to give the card right away, but to make
careful note of it, now push all the cards together and pick it out of the packet thus formed.
9. The Granted Requests
You have the deck shufed and at the moment when you take it back, you give a glance at the
botom card, and take note of it. You now quickly lower the hand with the deck, and turn to another
person. As you turn, however, you bring the botom card on top of the deck, and then put the deck
down on the table while you call on someone to divide it into three packets. Now you explain that
you are able to bring it about that you must be given the card which you desire by the person who
wants to do this. For example, you have seen that the botom card is the ten of clubs, so you speak
in the following way: Give me now from the frst packet (that is, one of the ones in which the ten of
clubs does not lie) the ten of clubs! and have the top card given from this packet, but look at it with-
out leting the person see it. This card, for example, is the ace of hearts. Now you continue to speak:
Now from the second packet, I want the ace of hearts! Here you designate the other packet in
which the ten of clubs does not lie. You look at the given card, again without leting the person see it.
This card, for example, is the eight of spades. You continue: And the eight of spades I will now take
myself, and as you say this, you take the ten of clubs, and put it face down with the two others in
the same way. Now you ask which cards you have claimed, and turn over the 3 cards, and you will be
shown to be right.
There are still a few other tricks of the same kind, which are done by looking at the botom
card; these, however, are of such a simple nature, that litle interest will be evoked by them, and
since in the following lines we will give a procedure through which, without the slightest knowledge
of the pass or any other sleight of hand, the trick of the two packets can also be performed in a not
completely unappealing way, we believe it will be welcome to the kind reader if instead of the kind
of tricks with which Tertian used to entertain himself, we undertake beter ones in these pages, and
we believe we are not making ourselves guilty of repetition if we go through the tricks in Part II here
in another way. The merit of making it more atractive, however, still always goes to the one who fol-
lows the instructions in Part II.
10. The Remaining Card
This trick ranks in Part II as no. 4, and can be performed with a long or wide card in the following
way. You have a card taken, then put the deck on the table, cut of a packet from it at the long card,
and put the card taken on the lower packet, then you close the deck and have it cut a few times by
the spectators. You now call atention to the fact that you have completely closed the deck and have
no longer touched it, hence you could not know where the taken card now is. Then you go through
67
the deck, where you now easily recognize the card which lies before the long one as the chosen card.
Should the long card by chance lie on top, then the taken card will be found as the botom one in the
deck and reversed in the opposite case. The found card you now make the botom one, then put the
deck on the table, and proceed in the way given in Nr. 4 of Part II.
11. Under the Handkerchief
This piece can be found in Part II under Nr. 6. You proceed in the same way as was shown
in the preceding trick, bring the found card at last on top of the deck, and now following the instruc-
tions of Nr. 6 in Part II, can fnd it with the handkerchief.
12. The Stubborn Card
It is performed in the same way. Afer you insert the chosen card under the long one and
have had the deck cut several times, you pick it out again, and put it as the botom card, on which
you give someone the deck to hold in the way taught in Part II and perform the pass.
13. The Litle Magic Thumb
This trick must be performed in a somewhat diferent way. That is, before you proceed to
the performance, you have placed a certain card known to you under the long one, and now cut for
each person at this one, show the top card of the lower packet, put it again in its place, and then close
the deck, while you put the cut packet on it again. Now you go to another person, ask him with the
words: I will now, for example, cut here, and please look at this card! and proceed in doing so in
the same way so that he looks at the same card. And so you go to work with all the persons. The es-
sential thing for the performance is a nonstop pater.
14. The Lucky Throw
This can be performed just as easily. You have the taken card inserted under the long one,
close the deck, and while the door is being examined, you pick out the inserted card in the known
way, stick the nail through it and then perform the throw. As can easily be seen, what makes the
trick in Part II appear especially difcult in the eyes of the spectators, that is the showing of the top
and botom cards, must be lef out here.
15. Efective Pressure
This can likewise be performed with the long card. Afer the taken card is inserted under the
long card and has been cut several times, you pick it out, and bring it on top of the deck, whereupon
you follow the procedure given in Part II under this number.
16. With the Help of a Needle
This is performed in the same way as the preceding trick. The use of the needle is taught in
Part II.
17. In Flight
The picking out of the chosen card is performed in a way similar to that in the preceding
piece. What you now have to do in order to produce the card, good reader, you will learn in Part II.
68
18. As you Command
From Part I, it can likewise be performed with a long card; in that right at the beginning
you cut the deck, show the card, have it shufed back in, and now ask whether you should take the
shown card or cut again.
19. The Best Sleight
This piece, which was dealt with in Part I, can be performed without the use of the pass,
merely through a clever use of the long card, only the shufes are lef out.
20. Card Arithmetic
This is the frst part of the trick The Enchanted Candle in Part I, and can also be done mere-
ly with the long card. When the cards are taken you take care that the long card is not taken, which
you can easily avoid by puting it as the botom card. You then have all the taken cards inserted un-
der the long card, which in the meantime you have found a chance to bring to the middle, but as you
do so, you capture the atention of the spectators through a lively speech, and by this must prevent
them from noticing that the cards are always inserted in the same place. To this end, it is hence also
good if you take the card from a person now in one place, now in another, without however losing
track of their sequence. During a suitable speech you now cut in your hands at the long card, so that
the inserted card becomes the top one, and then proceed in the way already described.
21. Puting Down Cards
In order not to allow set-up b of section 4 to remain unused, we will use it here. That is you
take the 13 cards of one suit from a whist deck, and give the spectators the task of ordering these 13
cards in a packet in such a way that in puting a card on the table and then puting the following one
under the packet, you always put them down according to the order of the 13 cards. In order to be
able to accomplish this, the cards must be put in set-up b of Section 4, through which the wished-for
result will be achieved.
We have only a few more pieces to mention in this section which can be performed with pre-
pared cards or decks.
22. The Nameless Card
You split two cards and glue the backs together on their white sides with rubber [cement], so
that the result is a card which displays a back side on both sides, and hence cannot be named. Afer
you have put this card under the long card, you claim to a person, with whom you can permit your-
self a joke, that you will cut at a card which he will not be able to name. If he accepts, you cut at the
long card, and have the top card of the remaining packet removed, where this result appears. Some-
one who has mastered the force can also have the card taken.
23. The Janus Cards
Two diferent cards of a deck are split, and the two face sides are then glued together with
rubber [cement], so that one such card has on both sides the face of a diferent card.
A few litle pieces can be performed with such cards. That is, you make ahead of time two
such double cards, which are both glued to the same card. For example, each them shows on one side
69
the king of diamonds, on the other the ace of clubs. These you keep in your pocket, and at a fting op-
portunity you bring them into the deck, where you now frst show one of them with the king of dia-
monds toward the spectator, then ask for a handkerchief, and as you place the card under the hand-
kerchief, you quickly turn it over, so that the face of the ace of clubs is showing. And you proceed in
the same way with the other card, holding out the ace of clubs to the spectator and then when you
put it down turning it over, so that the king of diamonds appears to be lying there when the handker-
chief is removed. A spectator who does not refect much on it will believe an enormously difcult ex-
change has been performed, when, as the handkerchief is removed, both cards have switched places.
Naturally, you must take care, when the handkerchief is removed, that the two cards are touched by
no one and they must be removed immediately afer the performance.
24. The Use of a Deck Set Up According to Section 4 for Several Simple Card Tricks

25-1. The Telltale Cards
Afer cuting several times, you approach a person, quickly looking in the meantime at the
botom card, and in this way you already know which is the top card. Now you have the cards taken
one afer another, from the top down, and in doing so note the sequence of the persons as well as of
the cards. For the rest, you follow the instructions in Num. 1 of Part I, that is, following it in what
concerns the taking of cards.
26-2. The Right Cut
With a deck set up in this way, which you can have cut superfuously a few times (in doing so, how-
ever, do not forget the already mentioned precaution: that no card may be brought out of its order),
you frst approach a person, cut at a desired place in the deck, and ask him to look at the top card of
the lower packet, and while this is being done, you will quite casually glance at the top card of the
cut packet, and thus already know the card the person has seen. When, for example, you have seen
that the botom card of the cut packet (which you, naturally, do not let out of your hand, but through
one simple rotation of your hand, make it possible for you to see the card), is the king of clubs, you
immediately remember the order, and that the nine of clubs follows this card. You now have the
person put the card again in its place, put the cut packet on it, and in doing so name the chosen card,
and turn to another person, with whom you act in the same way. If, my dear reader, someone is gifed
with a good memory, he can give this simple trick an interesting touch, in that he does not name the
card immediately to the person, but notes the card of each person and only makes them known at the
conclusion, along with the statement of who saw them.
27-3. Guessing the Card Names
For the performance of this number, the deck may not be cut, but must be in the exact order given
in section 4 a. Since you are now in a position to note the order of all 32 cards, you will, with a litle
practice, also be able to note very easily the place in the sequence of each card in the deck. Thus this
piece is a mnemonic trick. You now ask each person which card in sequence he wishes, immediately
name it, and take from the top the cards up to the desired number into your right hand, but without
puting them down, and show the card found below it, in order to prove that you have guessed right.
Now these will be put back in order, the pushed-together cards go on top of it and you turn to an-
other person, in order to go through the same procedure with him. If you still are not very practiced
in it, you can limit yourself to giving the suit.
28-4. The Ever-Recurring Card
70
If you have in this kind of suitably set-up deck a long card, an apparently difcult trick can be per-
formed with it. Since the long card is placed in its order, you also know which card follows it.
You now have yourself blindfolded, and explain that, without being in collusion with anyone,
you will always know which card has been looked at. Now, while you have the individual persons
come up to you, you always cut at the long card, have the top card of the lower packet looked at, put
again in its place (you must make certain by touch that this really takes place), and ask the person
not to name the seen card to anyone. Once you have had several people take part in this way, you cut
once more in your own hands, but completely, so that the card looked at so ofen comes to the top,
put the deck down on the table, cover it with a handkerchief, and explain that, although blindfolded,
you will now fnd all of the looked-at cards from the deck. According to the instructions of Nr. 6 of
Part II, you now produce the card lying on top as the found card, and specify in advance, that al-
though you have only a single card here in the handkerchief, each person will see in it the card he has
looked at. With these words you bring the card out of the handkerchief and put it on the table.
And in this way, you can perform several of the other pieces in this part, in that this new one
appears again, which you can go to work at while blindfolded.
By these instructions we absolutely do not intend to describe the formation of new tricks, but
only diferent performance methods, diverging from one another, of a few pieces, in order to put the
friendly reader in a position to correspond to every request and not to be embarrassed by anything.
29. The Use of Prepared Decks
We have mentioned one kind of prepared deck in Section 5 of the introduction, in that we
said you may have a deck cut in such a way that either the high or low cards, or the face and non-face
cards or the red and black suits difer from one another in their length or width. A few pieces can be
performed with them, for example:
30-1. The Reliable Cards

In the following tricks we will take one of the three cases, that is: where the red cards are wide, but
the black cards long. For the performance of this number, you explain: you will divide the deck into
two packets by pulling apart, and it can be decided by the spectators in which hand you should have
all the red or black cards, with such exactness that people can rely on your cards. Depending on the
answer, you now take the deck and separate the cards. If, for example, it is asked that the red cards
should remain in the right hand, the black in the lef hand, since you know that the back cards are
long, you take the deck by the narrow edge and pull out the cards that are held in this way, at which
the red ones come into the lef hand.
31-2. Quick Granting of Requests
You say that you will cut the deck into several packets, and the spectators can determine
whether the botom cards of the individual packets should be red or black cards. Depending on how
the answer turns out, you now always take the deck either on the narrow or on the long side through
which these requirements will instantly be fulflled.
32-3. Guessing the Suit
With such a deck you can also very easily keep the obligation which you enter into of saying
you will always guess the suit of the card you cut at, where you only [have to] pay atention to on
which side you cut, whether on the narrow on or the long side.
71

Another kind of prepared deck is the marked one. These are those decks which are marked
either by very fne indications on the back side, which you yourself have added, that is, by very small
dots or lines, which are apparent only to those who know about them, or by needle marks in the cor-
ners, which are smoothed out again with the fngernail, but which nevertheless can by felt by those
who know the secret.
This way of marking decks is well known to sharpers. If need be, they can be used for a trick
for entertainment, in that, with such a deck in your hands, you can have it shufed, and then never-
theless be able to give the sequence of the cards as they lie next to each other.
32. Conical Deck
The best use, however, can be made of a deck which is cut in a conical shape, as is given in
Section 5 of the introduction.
18

You can have the deck shufed as you desire, even have the cards mixed up on the table, and,
as you gather the cards again, you pull out the cards that do not match by a quick movement of your
hand, and put them with the rest of the like ones. This is for the case that they are heaped up together
on the table, for during the shufe all the cards remain in the same position.
Afer you have put all the cards, that is, all the like cones together, you can now even show
the deck, in order to demonstrate that it is not one of the prepared decks, in which perhaps one or
several cards are longer or wider; it is exactly the same kind of ordinary deck of cards. Here follow
now under
33-1
Some Instructions a few details about how most of the tricks in Part II can be performed with-
out a pass or shufes, yes even without a long card, and we believe that it will not be unreasonable
for the reader to accept it, if in the space of so few pages it will be explained to him how to perform so
many tricks in three ways.
You have a card taken from the regular set-up deck, and ask the person to put his card in the
deck again. And the whole trick revolves around this. That is, you are concerned only about the side
on which the person is holding his card when he reaches out to put it in; then you must hold out the
deck to him in the same way; for example if you note that he wants to put the card in with the narrow
side, you hold out the deck to him with the narrow side, for in this way the wide side of his card goes
into the narrow side of our deck, and if you then take the deck for yourself, you will immediately feel
this card lying turned around in it and can, on taking it out, now bring it to the top or the botom, de-
pending on whether you want to perform one of the tricks in Part II. Afer it is inserted, you can even
have the deck shufed, during which nevertheless, as a precaution, you must ask that none of the
cards be allowed to fall. However, as has been said, nothing will be changed in the order of the coni-
cal cards merely by shufing. With these few words, now the friendly reader, who shrank from the
passes and shufes in Part II, has these tricks almost completely open to him and with the remaining
ones cited in this part, he will have at his command a fairly large number of not completely uninter-
esting tricks at his command.
You can also, if you have set up the deck, even hold it out to someone, and let him take a
card for himself, and then only take the deck back for a moment in order, that is, to have the taken
18 In English, these cards are now called strippers (Trans.).
72
card inserted, and then give it back immediately for shufing, so that you can say you have not even
touched the deck.
Another trick, which can be performed with such a deck, originates through it, because we
count as one all the things made possible by the preceding lines.
34-2. Incomprehensible Speed
You have a card taken in the stated way, have it inserted, and immediately turn to another
person situated at a distance, in order to have this repeated. At the same moment, however, you
quickly take the inserted card out and put it on top. And in this way, you now have several persons
take cards and always bring them on top. Now you take care that none of the top cards is taken,
which you can easily prevent by quickly pushing them over to the right in your right hand during the
taking and there covering them; you now quickly ask that a card be taken, thus they will always be
taken from the middle. Afer the last of the taken cards have been brought on top, you put these so
that they do not match the remaining cards. You now approach another person, in order to give the
deck to him for another shufe, for, as already mentioned several times, the position of the conical
cards is not changed by shufing. Then you take back the deck, and at the moment that you go back
to the table again, in order to put the deck on it, you quickly take hold of the preceding cards, take
them out and put them on top. Now you call the spectators atention to the fact that afer the cards
were inserted by other hands, the deck was shufed, hence it was no longer possible for you to fnd
them; also you have not looked at the deck again, but at that moment put it on the table, and yet you
must put all the cards that were taken on top of the table. You take as many cards as were taken for
them from the top down, reveal them, and the truth of your statement will be confrmed.
35-3. You Cant Lose a Trick
You propose to one of the spectators that you will have him shufe the deck, and yet if he
wants to accept a game of cards with you, he will not be able to make a single trick; it is a newly in-
vented game where each of the players gets 16 cards; you must however, frst look to see whether any
card is missing. During this short speech you put all the face cards and aces on top of the deck in a re-
versed position from the rest, give it to the person in question to shufe and remain standing in front
of him. Afer the deck has been returned afer shufing, you go to one of the facing seats, in order
to begin the game; at that moment, however, you pull out the high cards, which are lying reversed
in the deck, and put them in the same reversed position on top of the deck, which you immediately
put down on the table. Now you mention again that there is, as is well known, a general rule for the
game, to cut before the deal, and at these words you take all the high cards lying reversed on top of
the deck and cut as usual. Through this, however, all the bad cards come on top, and when you now
deal 16 cards one afer another to the person and also to yourself, you will quite naturally have all
the face cards and aces in your hand, and the person may now play however he wants, it is very clear
that he will not be able to make a single trick, through which you will win the wager.
H
This is the conclusion of this part, and now, afer the kind reader has shown so much patience
with us, in following us through three rooms of the litle edifce that we have endeavored to build
in these few pages, we again invite him to enter a quite tiny litle cubicle, in which, to the extent that
our small needs require, we occupy ourselves with a few physics experiments, and use them for our
purpose. Fear not, my friendly reader! If you see on the door a litle black plaque with the inscrip-
73
tion: Sympathetic inks, dont be afraid that these pages will overwhelm you with boring analysis,
in which you shall come to know what are indeed, in the eyes of many, most interesting processes,
which seem to allow the simple cards of a deck to appear in all the colors of the chameleons; for we
think that you share our opinion, when we say that it cannot be very entertaining for a company to
wait with placid submissiveness until a card put on the hot plate is pleased to change its beautiful
white surface, and in the end, to the general astonishment, appear in a color we dont have a name
for.
We have cleaned this Augean stable as much as possible, but far be it from us to expect to
have the fabulous power of Hercules, who, as is well known, cleaned out the thing until it shone.
74
A Few Remarks About the Use
Of Sympathetic Inks
One of the greatest mistakes which has been constantly been made up to now in books which
treat of these subjects in regard to sympathetic inks, consists of the fact that they mostly contain reci-
pes for those inks whose efect only makes an appearance afer some time, ofen only afer four hours;
hence, as can easily be seen, all those specifcations with which those pages are flled are as good
as useless, for in card tricks, where it is a mater of instantaneous results, should they fail halfway
through. it is not possible to use them. In part also, the recipes are set down quite simply, and send
the reader of on the long road of experiments in order to ascertain how he can make the proportions
of the ingredients given there suitable for his use. Even if these difculties were overcome, you still
must inject the result obtained into a trick, hence as already mentioned, what has been known up to
now about sympathetic inks in regard to cards has been defcient.
We will endeavor through the content of the following lines to counteract the defects men-
tioned here, to remove them where possible, and to make their use available for implementation.
Without going deeper into the territory of the chemical compositions for there are several
kinds of sympathetic inks, whose use nevertheless is litle suited for card tricks we will immediately
go to the kind which make a hidden writing legible through sympathetic interaction of the kinds of
air contained in it, and through the vapors of an object which is saturated with another fuid.
However, before we proceed to their use on cards, we will give here their composition and
the necessary preparations.
If you write with a clean pen on paper with litharge (lead monoxide) vinegar and let the
writing dry, nothing can be seen of it. Litharge vinegar is prepared by puting an ounce of powdered
litharge and four ounces of distilled vinegar over moderate heat and then making an extract by flter-
ing the fuid obtained from it.
The sympathetic ink for this is the following: On a mixture of a Lot
19
of pure powdered orpi-
ment (arsenic sulfde) and a Lot of unslaked lime, you pour a half measure of river water and put this
on moderate heat until it is boiled down to half. Afer you flter the liquid obtained from this, you
store it in a hermetically sealed glass container. If you open this container and hold a piece of paper
writen on with the litharge vinegar over it, the fumes of the liquid contained in the jar will work
instantly to corrode the acid and the writing will appear in a dark brown color.
This experiment is the basis for the following trick, which, as the reader will soon fnd, can be
varied in many ways. You have the pouch [alone] of a simple wallet made at a bookbinder, yet with-
out the usual side pockets put in it, and with the several sheets of paper which most of the time are
bound in it lef out, so that you merely have the leather pouch, which absolutely must be lined inside
with very strong satin.
20
On the one side, however, covered by a border decoration so it is not notice-
able, the satin is cut open, so that a piece of doubled fannel, which you saturate with the liquid kept
in the container, can be pushed in. Thus if this kind of pouch is shown, nothing will be noticeable on
it; however, it is not very advisable to expose it for long to the olfactory organ of the spectator, for the
fuid with which the fannel is soaked gives of a very bad odor, similar to roten eggs, which, as is
well known, is not a very agreeable perfume.
19 Lot: an old unit of weight varying between 14 and 8 grams (Trans).
20 Or sateen (imitation satin made of coton); the German word can refer to both.
75
You further write on 32 billets, which you have cut from a piece of card paper, the names
of 4 cards, that is, eight of them the same card; you write with litharge vinegar, so that the lines of
writing, afer it dries, are no longer visible. Naturally, you order the billets so that the eight identical
ones follow one another. You keep this packet on you. You bring it out, spread out the billets, let it be
seen that they are clean and blank, and then put them down on the table in four packets, with eight
in each, so that in each packet every single one has the same name. You now remain standing at the
table, and call on someone from the company to take a billet from one of the packets, to examine it
closely to see whether anything at all can be found on it, and then have it put in the pouch, which you
have shown to be empty, close it and put it on the table. Now you take the deck in which you have
already brought on top the 4 cards whose names are writen on the billets, in the same sequence that
the billets have been put. You now force that card whose like-named billet was taken. If it should be
the second, third or fourth of those cards lying on top, you pass the one that is necessary, according
to section 1 e. Now afer this card has been forced, you explain that through the simple use of a few
forces of nature on the previously blank billet which has been put in the empty wallet, there must
be writen the name of the card which the person in question has in his hand. Through a few experi-
ments, which you have conducted at home, you will have determined the length of time needed for
the working of the soaked fannel, in order to make the writing stand out. On request, you can even
repeat this piece, during which, nevertheless, with the help of your speech, you have to guide the
choice of the billet into another packet than the one from which a billet has already been taken. In
order to dispel the belief that instead of the inserted billet another has been brought out, you can ask
the person to put any mark he desires on the billet. You would, however, be very much mistaken if
you perhaps were to make the thing into something supernatural, or try to seriously ascribe the result
to a miraculous ability or unfathomable bit of conjuring, in order to convince the spectators.
Making yourself laughable in the eyes of every cultured person would be reward won by
this. You should allow this trick to mean what all the rest should also mean an atempt to entertain
for a few moments. Whether you make such statements in the circle of your friends as a joke, is a mat-
ter to be decided by the performer.
Another kind of sympathetic ink is the one which is made to appear through heat or ammo-
niac vapors. In the books that have appeared up to now, only the ingredients for it have been given.
Through several experiments we have been placed in a position to give the friendly reader the pro-
portions of ingredients which will obtain instant results.
You dilute 12 Lots of concentrated nitric acid with 6 Lots, or an eighth of a pint, of pure
water, pour over this mixture a Lot of quicksilver, and let this stand for a few hours. If you now write
anything at all with this solution, afer it dries, nothing will be seen, but when exposed to the heat
of a fame, or ammoniac vapors it will almost instantly become visible, and indeed will appear quite
black.
Based on these experiences, you can perform a few pieces with cards with this ink.
From the deck which you are using, you have to take only one example painted four iden-
tical pips with this ink to the right and lef on the ace of spades, and hence it appears to be simply
an ace of spades. You force this card according to Section 2. Now, however, it is well known that if
you hold a piece of paper horizontally over a fame and blow on it from above, it will not burn, for,
because of the air pressure exerted on the surface of the paper, the fame is prevented from penetrat-
ing its pores. You use this for your trick. You take the ace of spades from the person and approach a
candle fame, and while you hold it horizontally over the fame and move it back and forth, you blow
hard on it from above, until you note that all eight pips have appeared, through which the ace has
76
now become the nine. Now holding the card face side up, you give it to the person to hold wrapped
in a handkerchief. You have in the deck, however, another and unprepared ace of spades; you now
have this taken by another person and then ask to see the card.
These two inks are reliable in their efects and can be used with the same result in card tricks.
They are simple to prepare and neither require chemical apparatus nor create other signifcant expen-
ditures. To have a card appear red, green, blue, yellow, pink, and in all the colors of the rainbow will
be a undertaking arousing very litle interest in the spectators, hence it would perhaps be beter for
me to set out here, instead of the instructions necessary for this, the diferent cards which can be used
for the above trick.
[The following] can be transformed in this way:
The Ace of Spades and clubs into the Nine of spades and clubs
Three of spades and clubs
Two Three of spades and clubs
Four Five of spades and clubs
Six of spades and clubs
Ten of spades and clubs
Six Seven of spades and clubs
Eight of spades and clubs
Seven Eight of spades and clubs
And in the same way, through over-painting, the diamonds and hearts can be changed into
spades.
And here is the end of these pages. We only ask the reader who is so inclined to kindly
grant us two requests:
First, not to accuse us of leaving card tricks with collusion almost completely untouched,
because we were of a mind to make the esteemed reader who wants to acquire something from these
pages as independent and autonomous as possible.
Second, May you not expect us to be so presumptuous as to want to be exhaustive in these
few pages.
But nothing is perfect! were the words which the author asked to be allowed to appeal to.