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overhand method, running the chosen card to the bottom and back to the top.
    3. Address a second spectator. 'Will you please think of a number between five and twenty? You have one? When I turn my back whisper your number to the person who selected a card.' Turn your back, turn the top card - the selected card - face upwards and dig your thumbnail into it near the two index corners. This will make a bump on the back of the card which you will feel with your right thumb when dealing the cards. Replace the card face down on the top.
    4. Turn around and give the pack to a second spectator. 'I want you to deal, silently, cards to the number of which you are thinking. This will impress the number on your mind and help me to get the right impression. I will turn away as you deal.' Do so. When he announces that the deal is completed, instruct him to replace the dealt cards on the rest of the pack.
    5. This done, face the front again and take the pack. 'My trick is this,' you say. 'I shall attempt to read your thoughts and so get the number of which you are thinking.' As you speak, shuffle the cards - using the overhand shuffle control, retaining top stock to keep the upper half of the deck unchanged.
    6. Continue, 'As I deal the cards, please think intently of your number.' Deal the cards, one by one, counting them aloud, until you feel a bump under your right thumb. Let us say that this is the sixteenth card. Remove it, holding it in your right hand face downwards.
    7. Announce that this is the number he thought of and when he agrees ask him, 'Do you know how I knew that is your number?' He will admit that he does not know. Turn to the spectator who chose the card and ask him, 'What was the name of the card you selected?' When he names it, slowly turn up the card you hold. It is that very card!

CHAPTER 2

The Riffle Shuffle

    This is the shuffle ordinarily used by card players, but in spite of its almost universal use it is rarely done neatly or even smoothly. Nearly always the cards are bent far too much and then pushed together clumsily. The proper way to execute the shuffle should be acquired at the outset, not for appearances' sake alone, but also because it will enable you to shuffle with ease and certainty. Here is the proper procedure.
    1. Place the deck on the table in front of you, its sides parallel to the edge of the table. With your right hand cut off half the cards and place the packet end to end with the other packet (figure 14).

    2. Put your hands on the packets, your thumbs against the adjacent inner corners, your index fingers resting on the backs near these ends and your middle, ring and little fingers against the outer sides. Your hands thus assume identical positions on their respective packets.
    3. Seize the packets between the thumbs and the middle and ring fingers. Raise the inner corners with the thumbs, bending the cards very slightly against the downward pressure of the index fingers (figure 15).

    4. Begin to release or riffle the ends of the cards of each packet so that they interweave. Regulate this release of the corners so that cards fall from each packet alternately, either singly or several at a time.
    5. When this action has been completed and all the ends of the cards are interlaced, seize the outer ends of the packets between the thumbs and the index and middle fingers and push the packets inwards, telescoping them until they are almost, but not quite, flush.
    6. To square the deck neatly and gracefully, place the thumbs at the middle of the inner side of the deck, their tips touching one another, and the index fingers against the ends near the outer corners. Now move the thumbs outwards along the side of the deck and the index fingers inwards along the ends, and by their pressure squeeze the cards flush (figure 16). When the tips of the thumbs and index fingers meet at their respective inner corners, the deck will be squared perfectly.

    The riffle shuffle has its greatest use when the