Читать книгу Expert Card Technique - Jean Hugard - Страница 78

This sleight is an extremely easy one and it is one of the most surprising changes in the whole range of card conjuring. The method of preparing for the change which we are about to describe is a great improvement upon the method given by Merlin in his book … and a Pack of Cards, permitting the operator to perform a bewildering series of tip-over changes with the same card without awkward fumbling. The change itself is made by secretly dropping a second card on the first in the act of turning the latter face downwards. Here are the moves:

1. Hold the pack in the left hand as for dealing, the little finger maintaining a break above the chosen card.

2. Cut the pack at the break with the right first and second fingers at the outer end, the thumb at the inner end. The two fingers are near the left corners with their top joints curled in against the face card, Fig. 1. In actual practice the first finger curls at the top of the pack and is only moved into the position shown in Fig. 1 for a moment, in order to effect the sleight later to be given in item 4. Thus more of the back of the pack is visible.

3. With the left thumb push the top card of the lower portion, the chosen card, to the left. Turn this card face upwards upon its packet by striking its right edge upwards with the left side of the right hand packet. As the attention of the spectators is concentrated upon this faced card:

4. Press the third phalange of the right second finger flat against the face card of the right packet. Draw this face card outwards an eighth of an inch with this finger and then swing it a quarter of an inch to the right into a diagonal position. Let the inner end of this card drop slightly and place the tip of the right thumb against its inner left corner, the opposite diagonal corner being held against the second joint of the third finger, Fig. 2.

5. Turn the faced card on the left packet face down by pushing it off the deck with the left thumb as before and striking it with the left side of the right packet, which moves over the left packet in the action. When the right hand packet is directly over the left hand packet release the card gripped by the right thumb, thus secretly placing an indifferent card on top of the card just shown.

6. Thumb off the top card of the left packet onto the table. To the spectators it is the card which just before was turned face upwards upon the left hand packet. Actually it is an indifferent card, the chosen card remaining on the top of the packet.

This sleight can be used very effectively as a finale to the trick known as The Ambitious Card. After having shown that the card continually returns to the top of the pack, undercut half the deck retaining the upper half in the left hand. Turn the top card of this packet with the right hand packet as explained above, then execute the tip-over change and thumb off the indifferent card onto the table.

Turn the chosen card face up again and continue the action for as many times as you think desirable, finally spreading the cards on the table and the pack face upwards to prove that no duplicate cards are being used. Smartly done the effect will be found all that one could wish.