ly CUTTING the cards--always preserving their sequence--a most
important fact for card-players, since it may lead to a pretty accurate
conjecture of all the hands after a deal, from the study of the one in
hand, with reference to the tricks turned down after the previous deal,
as already suggested. Hence, in shuffling for whist or other games, the
cards should not be shuffled in this way, but more thoroughly mixed by
the edgewise shuffling of certain players.

This is the trick I alluded to at the commencement of the chapter, the
mode of performing which I succeeded in discovering.

Of course ANY NUMBER of persons may think of cards, remembering their
order, and the operator will tell them, in like manner.

8. A person having thought of one of fifteen cards presented to him, to
guess the card thought of.

Form three ranks of five cards each, and request a party to think of one
of these cards, and tell you in which rank it is. Take up the cards of
the three ranks, taking care to place the cards of the ranks in which is
the card thought of between those of the two other ranks.

Make three more ranks as before. Ask the party again in which rank the
card is, and take them up, placing the rank in which the card is between
the two others. Operate in like manner a third time, and the card
thought of will infallibly be the THIRD of the rank named by the party.

Observe, however, you must not form each rank with five consecutive
cards; but you must place the cards one by one, placing one successively
in each rank; thus, one at the top on the left of the first rank, one
below that first for the second rank, one below the second for the third
rank, then one in the first, one in the second, one in the third, and so
on.

This trick, which is very easy, always produces a great effect. It only
requires a little attention, and it can never fail unless you make a
mistake in arranging the cards, which, however, is too simple to admit
of error.

9. Two persons having each drawn a card from a pack, and having replaced
them, to tell these cards after the pack has been shuffled and cut by
the spectators as often as they like.

The cards may be easily divided into two numerical parts, even and odd:
by taking a king for four points, a queen for three, a knave for two,
and the other cards for their especial points, we may make up two sets
of sixteen cards each, the even composing one, and the odd the other.
These two sets being before