How to Make a Spectator Become a Magician
Harold Lloyd

This is a trick in which the magician does not touch the cards from first to last, yet a spectator produces a really magical effect without having the least idea of how he did it.

To produce the effect, pick out someone in your audience and assure him that he would make a first class magician. You hand him a pack of cards and tell him that he will do a real feat of magic entirely by himself. First have him shuffle the cards, then pick out the four aces and lay them on the table face down in a row, in any order he pleases. On each one you tell him to deal three cards face down, then to gather up the four heaps, in any order, and put them on top of the other cards. Next he is to cut the pack. The aces are thus well separated somewhere in the middle of the deck.

Instruct him then to deal the cards face up. While he is doing this you stop him and ask him in which pile he would like to have the aces if he were to deal four piles. Suppose he says, "In the third pile." You tell him to deal four hands of four cards in the regular way, face down. He turns over the third pile and to his astonishment there are the four aces. In view of the fact that he has shuffled, cut and dealt the cards himself and that you have not even touched them, you can imagine the bewildering effect of the trick.

As with so many of the best feats this one depends on a very simple principle. When your victim turns the cards face up after shuffling them, in order to take out the four aces, you have only to note the card on the bottom of the deck. Suppose it is the ten of spades. As soon as he has put the aces in a row face down, tell him to deal three cards face down on each one. Naturally he turns the pack and deals from the tops, so that the ten of spades remains the bottom card. Now you know that every fourth card below the ten of spades is an ace.

You say that in a moment or two you are going to have him deal four piles of four cards each and you ask him to choose in which pile the aces are to appear all together. Suppose he says "In the third pile." Tell him to deal the cards face up in one heap and watch for the original bottom card, the ten of spades. As soon as he has dealt this card, and one more, stop him and have him deal four hands of four cards in the regular way. Every third card is now an ace, so that when he has dealt the four hands and turns over the third one, the four aces are revealed.

If the person chooses the first heap you allow three cards to be dealt off after the original bottom card; if the choice is the second heap you stop him after two cards following the original bottom card, and if the third hand is chosen, after one card only. Of course, if he wants the fourth hand, you stop him dealing the cards face up as soon as the original bottom card appears.

In giving the spectator his instructions, you are carelessly strolling about and apparently taking no notice, but you watched how deep the cut went so that you can tell just about when the key card will be turned and be in a position to see it when it appears. You have made the very intricate(?) calculation required and stop the face up deal accordingly.

I am indebted to Mr. Harold Lloyd, a clever magician of England, (not of Hollywood) for this gem of impromptu tricks. Do it once and it will remain in your repertoire for good.