I may be hung in effigy for running this trick, but it certainly will prove whether or not people read the sheet. It has been in my black notebook since around 1928 or 1929, and in those days I didn’t have enough sense to jot down dates and names the way I do now in order to prevent mayhem upon myself.
If this is read by the one who told it to me, or if it is seen by the originator (who may have been the one), I hope they drop me a line because my chief aim is to see that credit goes where it belongs. I take the liberty (even though it may prove fatal) of using the effect because, after seven or eight years, the percentage is with me that the originator will grant me the concession (I’ll make good at the regular rate) of using it, more so than with an effect of recent date.
The performer deals sixteen cards face down in a four card square. The rest of the deck is handed to an onlooker who secretly places any number of cards, from one to ten, in his pocket, and holds the remainder of the deck behind his back. The performer now touches the cards laid out, in a mixed up order, and each time one is touched, the spectator brings forward one card from those he holds and drops it in a face down pile. This is continued until he announces that the card he has just put down is the last. The finger of the performer is, at this time, touching a card, so he turns it over. The number of spots on this card is the same as the number of cards secretly pocketed by the spectator!
Although the performer cannot possibly know, when he touches a card, whether the spectator’s card to follow will or will not be the last one to fall, this being very evident to the audience, the tricks works with but very little mental exertion on the part of the performer (that’s probably what attracted me when I made the notes!).
The secret is simple in that only ten of the sixteen laid out cards are essential, they being of any suits, but in values from Ace to Ten. Lay them in any order that you may wish to invent, just so you easily can point to them in rotation beginning with the Ten spot and running down to the Ace. Have these on top of the pack so that you can false shuffle (the dovetail is good) and leave them in position. Then deal off the four rows of four cards each, having the ten cards necessary in their respective positions. This leaves 36 cards in the deck which are handed to an onlooker.
He secretly puts into his pocket any number from one to ten inclusive. NOW — when you start touching the cards (always before the spectator lays one down from behind his back), the first 25 may be any of the 16 cards in any order. BUT — the 26th card you touch is the Ten spot, the 27th is the Nine spot, the 28th is the Eight spot, and so on down to the Ace. Somewhere among these ten, the spectator will stop you as he deals his last card, and while your finger is still on a card. If you have done as described, you will have your finger on the card that tells the number of pasteboards the spectator secretly pocketed.
Always, for the effect, pick up this card without showing and ask how many he pocketed, remarking at the time that the card you hold is of the same number. He reveals this and you turn over the card. That makes the climax.
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