Page:Hocus pocus, or, The whole art of legerdemain in perfection (2).pdf/9

 your adversaries, with whom they bet, and yet are their confederates.

But in showing feats and juggling with cards, the principal point consisteth in the shuffling them nimbly, and always keeping one card either at the bottom or in some known place of the stock, four or five cards from it; hereby you shall seem to work wonders, for it will be easy for you to see one card, which though you be perceived to do, it will not be suspected, if you shuffle them well afterwards: and this note I must give you, that in reserving the bottom card, you must always, whilst you shuffle, keep him a little before or a little behind all the cards lying underneath him, bestowing him, I say, either a little beyond his fellows before, right over the forefinger, or else behind the rest, so as the little finger of the left hand may meet with it, which is the easier, the readier, and better way in the beginning of your shuffling. Shuffle as thick as you can, and in the end throw upon the stock the neither card, with so many more at the least as you would have preserved for any purpose, a little before or a little behind the rest, provided always that your fore finger (if the pack lay behind,) creep up to meet with the bottom card, and when you feel it, you may then hold it until you have shuffled over the cards again, still leaving your kept card below. Being perfect herein, you may do almost what you list with cards by this means, what pack soever you use, though it consisteth of eight, twelve, or twenty cards, you may keep them still together unserved next to the card, and yet shuffle them often to satisfy the curious beholder. As for example, and for brevity sake, to show divers feats under one.