The following is the entire scheme:--
Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8*
Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Months 1 2 3** 4 5 6 7 8
Years 1 2 3 4 5 6 7*** 8
The cards being thus arranged, the party who has to guess them
retires from the room. When he is recalled, whether blindfolded
or not, he pretends to count to himself for a considerable time,
so as to allow his associate time to say to him, without
affectation or exciting suspicion of collusion--'I give you,' or
'I give him SO MUCH TIME to guess what is required; 'for it is in
this phrase that the whole secret of the trick is contained, as I
shall proceed to demonstrate.
Suppose the card touched be one of those marked with the
asterisks * ** ***; if it be the first, the associate says,; I
give him eight days to guess it.' Then the medium, beginning
with the upper line, that of the days, will at once be able to
say that the card touched is the eighth of the first horizontal
line, or the first of the eighth vertical line.
If it be the card holding the place of the number marked with two
asterisks ** the associate says 'three months,' and 'seven years'
for the one marked with three asterisks ***.
|