This is perhaps the simplest possible form of a card trick done by sleight of-hand. Holding the deck in the left hand, after having observed the bottom card, with the fingers of the right hand over the top end of the cards, you draw the cards back a little one by one, descending from the top. At the same time, you invite the spectators to halt you at any preferred card. When the choice is made known, you draw back this card, together with all the cards above it, and hold out this portion of the pack with the face of the bottom card toward the company, and you name the card.
The spectators believe that the card thus shown them is that on which the choice fell. As a matter of fact, they are deceived by your sleight-of-hand. For, as you draw off the cards and separate them from the lower part of the deck, you draw off also by means of the thumb of your right hand, which presses against it, the bottom card. As you lift the cards up, the thumb holds this card from the bottom tightly against the indicated card, and it thus becomes the one displayed to the spectators instead of the card really selected. Since you have been at pains to notice the bottom card before beginning the trick, you now have no difficulty in naming it.
In doing this trick, it is advisable always after observing the bottom card to give the pack a false shuffle, and then proceed to the trick without any apparent attention to the arrangement of the cards.