The Self-Extricating Card
By Houdini

"PLEASE be so kind as to select, by name, any card in the pack. I shall run through the pack and find that card. Ah! Here it is. In order that you may be certain that you can hold on to it, please take this wooden pencil and push it right through the card. Thank you. It is, of course, obvious that the only way to free the card from the pencil is to remove it like this. Now, please push the pencil back through the hole in the card and hold the pencil with the right hand below the card and the left hand above. Hocus Pocus! And the card has escaped from the pencil and here it is in the middle of the pack. You see you hold quite a different card."

The method is really as simple as the trick is effective. When the card is named, take it and the card immediately above it from the pack and hold the two cards as one. Have the pencil pushed through both cards. An excuse is given in the patter to take the card off the pencil. In his left hand, at this point, the magician has the pack, which he puts under the two cards. He then grasps the cards between the pack and his thumb. The pencil he holds in the right hand. When the pencil is returned to the spectator, the left thumb brings the two cards square on top of the pack.

The right hand then takes from the pack but one card. and as the spectator sees the hole he has just made in the card, he does not realize the substitution. All that is left to do is to make a pass to bring the selected card to the center of the pack. It adds an amusing touch if the second card used is the Joker.