TRUMP CARDS.
Mrs. Bray relates the following instance of the power of a ruling passion or habit, concerning a Devonshire physician, boasting the not untradesmanlike name of Vial, who was a desperate lover of whist. One evening, in the midst of a deal, the doctor fell off his chair in a fit. Consternation seized on the company, who knew not whether he was alive or dead. At length he showed signs of returning life; and, retaining the last fond idea that had possessed him at the moment he fell into the fit, he exclaimed, "What is trumps?" A bon-vivant, brought to his deathbed by an immoderate use of wine, after having been told that he could not in all human probability survive many hours, and would die before eight o'clock next morning, summoned the small remnants of his strength to call the doctor back, and said, with the true recklessness of a gambler, "Doctor, I'll bet you a bottle that I live till nine!"