Ask one of them to select a card. You tell him to take it, and then to place it at the bottom of the pack. You hold up the pack, so that the spectators may see that the card is really at the bottom. Suppose this card is the king of hearts. Then, pretending to take that card, you take the card preceding it, and place it at a point corresponding to A in the following figure. A C B D You then take the card drawn, namely, the king of hearts, and place it at the point corresponding to B in the above figure. Finally, you take any two other cards, and place them at C and D. Of course, the cards are placed face downwards. After this location of the cards, you tell the party who has chosen the card that you will change the position of the cards, by pushing alternately that at the point A to B, and that at D to C, and vice versa; and you defy him to follow you in these gyrations of the card, and to find it. Of course, seeing no difficulty in the thing, and believing with everybody that his card is placed at the point A, he will undertake to follow and find his card. Then performing what you undertake to do, you rapidly change the places of the cards, and yet slowly enough to enable the party to keep in view the card which he thinks his own, and so that you may not lose sight of the one you placed at B. Having thus arranged the cards for a few moments, you ask the party to perform his promise by pointing out his card. Feeling sure that he never lost sight of it, he instantly turns one of the cards and is astonished to find that it is not his own. Then you say:--'I told you you would not be able to follow your card in its ramble. But I have done what you couldn't do: here is your card!' The astonishment of the spectators is increased when you actually show the card; for, having made them observe in the first instance, that you did not even look at the drawn card, they are utterly at a loss to discover the means you employed to find out and produce the card in question. 14. Cards being drawn from a pack, to get them guessed by a person blindfolded. At all these performances there are always amongst the spectators persons in league with the prestidigitator. In the present case a woman is the assistant, with whom he has entered into an arrangement by which each card is represented by a letter of the alphabet; and the following are the cards selected for the trick with their representative letters. The performer takes a handkerchief and blindfolds the lady in question, and places her in the centre of the circle of spectators. Then spreading out the cards, he requests each of the spectators to draw a card. He requests the first to give him the card he has drawn; he looks at it, and placing it on the table face downwards, he asks the lady to name the card, which she does instantly and without hesitation.