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STEWART JUDAH'S PELLET TRICK
In this trick that I'm going to give you the effect is as follows: An ordinary deck is used and shuffled as much as spectators desire. From this deck five people select one card apiece. Performer can let them take the cards one by one from the deck, or, they can pass the deck to one another, each one taking out a card. In this way, which is perhaps the best, the spectators surely feel positive that the performer DOES NOT KNOW one card that has been taken.
After the cards are noted, the performer passes each of them a small piece of paper. Each spectator writes the name of his card on his piece of paper and immediately crumples it in a little ball. These pellets are dropped in a glass and left on the floor, or on the table.
Performer collects the five cards, face down, and has any one of them taken, and without having this one selected card looked at, it is placed on the floor, or on the table, face down. The rest of the cards are put on top of the deck and forgotten. Now the pellets in the glass are shaken up by anyone, thrown out on the floor, and then performer lines them up in a row.
ANYBODY names any number from one to five inclusive. Performer picks up this pellet, tosses it to spectator who named the number. Spectator himself opens it and reads what it says. The card on the floor is now turned over and it corresponds with what was written on the paper.
METHOD:--Let the deck be shuffled as much as is desired and then have five cards selected by anyone and in any way.
Pass out your small pieces of paper. These should be about 2-in. square. Have spectators write the name of their cards on the papers. Instruct them to crumple them and you illustrate what you mean by taking another piece of paper and crumpling it so that it is in a small ball.
Now, with an ordinary tumbler, or cup, or some receptacle in your left hand, you take each pellet with your right hand and crumple it up some more and drop each one in the glass. BUT... when you come to, say, the third one, you squeeze this one a little harder than the rest so that it is a little flatter. Then drop this in; and if you have rolled the others in between your fingers so that they resemble a ball, you can easily tell which pellet is the third man's pellet because it will be a trifle flatter than the rest. DO NOT DO THIS TOO NOTICEABLY.
After you have them all in the glass, give them to someone, let him put one palm over the mouth of the glass, and shake them up. Now take the glass and lay it on the table or the floor.
Next, collect the cards, remembering where the third card is and you can keep mixing them up as much as you wish, but DON'T lose sight of where the third man's card is. If you get it the second to top, you can now fan out the cards face down, and take it to some other spectator, holding the fan to his left, and nine chances out of ten he will take the second one. This is the way I always do it, but the point is that you must have the third man's card selected SOMEHOW from the fan of five. This is laid face down somewhere.
You now take up the glass, dump out the pellets on the floor, and then make a row of them so that there is, perhaps, 6 in. or so in between each pellet. See that the flat one (or the third man's pellet) is No. 2 from either your left or your right.
Now have somebody give you any number they wish and stress the point that they can give you ANY NUMBER: one, two, three, four, or five. We will assume that the pellet that is flatter than the rest is second from your left. If they say "two" simply count from the left and pick that up. If they say "four" count from the right and pick that up. Now if they say any one of the other three numbers, proceed as follows:
We will assume they say "three." Pick up the third pellet between thumb and second finger tips of right hand, saying: "Very well, we'll pick up No. 2 so we won't have any need of this..." and you pick up No. 2 in the same manner and toss away No. 5 so that No. 1 is still in your hand. What you really do is exchange them in a natural manner. Now reach down, and with your second finger, snap or flip No. 1 away and then No. 4 and then No. 5. We have you do this simply because you threw away No. 2 (?). Now all that is necessary for you to do is to have somebody open the paper, have him read it, and then turn over the card and show that it is the same card that was written on the paper.
The above proceedings are perfectly natural; and if you take the trouble to do this for yourself three or four times, you will have a card trick that is out of the ordinary and a trick that has been one of my favorites for five or six years. I'm only too glad to give it to you and hope you'll like it.
Dear Old Stewart. At last he did a trick for us. You know, I've been trying for years to get him to show me a trick, but this is the first time I've seen him do one. You can show plenty to him tho', and he'll never say anything, and you don't know whether he was fooled or not. Stewart's from Cincinatti, in case you don't know. Last week a chorus girl in one of the hotels out there tried to commit suicide in the bathroom by turning on the gas. She was saved tho', by Stewart's watchfulness. Good boy, Stewart, good boy.
Now we have a very welcome surprise for you. I've seen this man perform at almost every large I. B. M. Convention that has been held, and NOBODY has ever made a bigger hit than he has. I don't think there's anybody in the business that surpasses him in sleight-of-hand work, in cigarettes or billiard balls, or other manipulative objects. He does a marvelous act... he's a great guy... and I know you're going to like him... and I'm going to introduce to you at this time:
AL SAAL SPEAKING: Thank you very much, Frank, for asking me to be in this Show. I'm glad to be represented and I know that you want something that is along the line of effects that I do, so here goes... Next