Only with prepared cards, has this effect heretofore been performed.

Standing with your right side to the audience, hold twelve cards in your right hand. Fan them with their faces to the audience, and slowly turn your hand to show the backs as well as the fronts. Close the fan and place the cards in your left hand, with faces outward.

Now rapidly count the cards from left hand to the right, as follows: Push the first card forward with the left thumb, pull it away with the right thumb, then grip it at the ends between the right first and little fingers, with the back of the card facing your palm. With the left thumb push the second card forward, but this time have the palm of the right hand facing downwards; press on the right edge of this second card with the two middle fingers of the right hand, move the left thumb out of the way, and the card will spring into the right hand, face to face with the card already there.

Count the third card into your right hand as you did the first, allow the fourth card to spring into the right hand as you did the second, and continue until the twelve cards now in the right hand are actually alternately face up and face down. Place them in the left hand for a moment, riffle them slightly with the right fingers for effect, then take the cards in the right hand and slowly fan them, displaying both sides.

Square the cards and replace in left hand. Again count them into the right hand, exactly as before, except that the seventh card is counted in the same manner as the sixth (by allowing it to spring into the right hand), then the alternate movements are continued. When you fan the cards in the right hand this time, six cards together will face one way, the other six the opposite way, which is a distinct surprise, and very unexpected.

Place them in your left hand once more, but insert the left little finger between the two sets of six and, under cover of squaring the cards, pull the six at the rear downwards and outwards with the last three fingers of the left hand, turning them face up the same as the front six. Retain them in your left hand for a moment, while the right fingers riffle them, then slowly fan the cards in the right to show them all facing one way, as at first.

Note: To provide cover for the peculiar way in which every second card is counted off, the hands should move away from each other each time a card is taken from the left hand. Smoothness will be acquired if the left thumb pushes the card right to the tips of the left fingers each time.