No. 5. Some Patter Suggestions

The color change is most often used as a mere flourish but it can also be effectively employed as an introduction to a series of card tricks or as an interlude between set tricks. For instance, let us say you have the following cards on the top of the deck, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, Three of Diamonds, Ten of Clubs and Ace of Spades; the Jack being the top card and the others following it in the order given.

To illustrate the use to which playing cards can be put to add color to a story, you recite the following verse, changing the face card of the pack by varying color change sleights at the appropriate word:

The young man (J. H.) makes of Hearts (Q. H.) his trumps,
      Then Diamonds (3 D.) he plays,
But when his dream romantic slumps,
      Too oft to Clubs (10 C.) he strays,
With varying luck the game is played,
      The final trick goes to a Spade (A. S.).

Here is another and more ambitious example of patter to be illustrated by the use of the color change:

Once upon a time a QUEEN'S HEART was WON by a KING. He had a large DIAMOND which cost lots of JACK. People at the wedding saw a great PAIR. One night, however, the KING played the DEUCE by coming home to the pal-ACE at THREE-SEVEN A. M. This made the QUEEN SICK, so she seized a CLUB from a TRAY and THREATENED to beat him up. Be-FORE she could strike him the KING tried TRUMPS, handing her FOUR TENS, remarking, "Here, do some shopping with what I WON." So they lived happily ever after and no SPADES were needed.

It should be a pleasant diversion for the enthusiast to arrange the various moves whereby the change can be made to best advantage with the color changes he has mastered. The' four tens might be crimped and at the right time secretly pushed from the back into the right hand and then produced in a fan from the knee.