THE plot of the trick is the usual one. Four A's are placed on a table and three indifferent cards put on each. One pile is chosen, the A's vanish from the other three piles and all four are found in the pile selected. The use of double-faced cards makes the trick easy to work and very convincing. Three special cards are required; double-faced A's of H, C and D, which show indifferent cards on the backs. To prepare the pack; turn it face upwards and put the double cards at intervals near the bottom with the A sides showing. Next place the regular AS between the second and third fake A's. The other three A's of the pack must lie seventh, eighth and ninth from the top. Begin by turning the pack face up and remove four A's (three faked ones and the regular AS), and lay them face up on the table with the AS as the third card in the row. Be careful not to expose the lower side of the faked cards but you may flash the back of the real AS. From the top of the pack take off three cards, show the faces casually and put them face down on the first A. Take the next three cards, again give a
A CARD chosen, duplicate brought to the top as usual, turn your back while the card is shown to all. Take two cards from the bottom of the pack, the bottom card and the third from the bottom and put them on the top. The four cards on the top of the pack will then be all different and the third from the top will be the duplicate of the chosen card. Have the spectator's card returned to the center of the pack, square the pack and at once deal the four top cards on to a card stand commencing on your right-hand side. Now you must have one of these selected and it must be the third from the right-hand side. Ask someone to call a number between one and four and, of course, the answer will be two or three. If three is chosen, count from the righthand side, if two is the number called, count from the left. In each case the chosen card is arrived at. The impression left on the minds of the spectators is that, although you did not express yourself any too clearly, still you intended to give a free choice of all four cards.