This is a trick that depends entirely on the arrangement of the cards.
Take the twelve face cards, that is, the king, queen and knave of each suit. Distribute these on the table face upward in three rows of four for each row. In doing so, you must take care to see that all four suits are in the first row. That is to say, there must be no duplicates in suit. But the value of the four cards is of no importance. Only, each card, whatever its value, must be of a different suit from the other three in the row.
Now, in laying down the second row, the first card must have the same suit as the last card in the first row. Then, the second card must have the suit of the first card in the first row; the third card must have the suit of the second card in the first row, and the last card of this second row must have the suit of the third card in the row above. Thus, the second row also has the four suits, as did the first row. And, again, the value of the cards is of no importance.
For the third row, the beginning is similarly with the suit of the last card in the preceding row. The second card in the third row has the suit of the first card in the preceding row: the third card, the suit of the second card in the preceding row: the fourth card, the suit of the third card in the preceding row.
You next gather up the cards, one by one, beginning with the last card of the third row, and placing on it in their order the last card of the second row, and of the first row. You then lay on these the third card of the last row, and after it in their order the third card in each row above. You continue with the second card of the last row and the second card of each row above in order. The series is finished by laying down the first card of each row, beginning at the bottom as before.
Having thus assembled the face cards, offer them face downward to anyone for cutting. They may be cut any number of. times, but they must not be shuffled.
Now, lay the cards face upward on die table. Four cards are first laid down in a row. These are followed by four more similarly laid down on the first row, and the remainder of the cards are distributed in like manner.
It will be found that in each of tlie four heaps, the three cards comprise the king, queen and knave of the same suit, though not necessarily in this order.