More Cardman
Johnny also did
disappearing paper balls beneath the hat tricks. Then one night,
Arthur Guinness let my father see the hidden balls in his hand. When
Dad managed to sneak his own hand-hidden paper balls beneath the hat. Johnny - lifting it to declare and now we have no balls left -
instead revealed that the hat was covering three paper balls. He left
the house in a fury and retired the trick.
I never learned how
he did the card trick, of naming all the cards in the deck I held in my hand. When I told Dad he said Johnny had a rhyme. He
arranged the cards in that order and then adjusted the rhyme in his
head depending on how well they were shuffled. “Once, he taught me
one,” he said.
In
the year Three Eighty Seven there was One Queen, in Sixty Four she
had Two sons the Jack and the King and their ages were Ten and
Fourteen.
You
make that with the Nine and Five.
“With
it you can count out cards in order. You know, O-N-E, putting these
cards to the bottom, of the thirteen cards, and then turning over the fourth card, The Ace,
T-W-O the two, right to the end, Q-U-E-E-N and you’re left with
the King.”
I can see Johnny as
I left him, beside the fire, drinking his sweet Smithwicks, running
his rhymes in his head, having a good day, smiling at the past.
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