VI.—THE DUFFER AT WHIST.
(Continued.)
I am really fond of the game, which is fortunate, though my partners don't think so; but I am free to confess, that nothing short of an absorbing admiration for it and desire to excel, could tempt me to brave the sarcasms, even insults, to which I am subjected. Your thoroughgoing Whist-player as such—admirable in private life as I personally know him to be—the moment he begins the daily business of his life, seems to cast his better nature to the winds. At another time and place he would lend a sympathetic ear to any tale of woe; now and here nothing seems to interest him but his own immediate welfare, which he pursues with concentrated energy and earnestness. I verily believe that if, at one of two adjoining tables, the chandelier fell on the players' heads to their exceeding detriment, the occupants of the other table would scarcely lift their eyes or interrupt their rubber for one moment. Fiant chartæ ruat coelum—let the cards be made whatever chandeliers fall.
The players at my Club are all good, one especially so, a retired Colonel of a West Indian regiment, of whom I stand in mortal dread. He has short shrift for any failings, even of players nearly as good as himself, whilst as for me! though he has never yet resorted to personal violence with a chair-leg, yet that would not surprise me; and my pestilent fate in defiance of all mathematical odds in such case made and provided, is to cut him as my partner three and four times in succession in an evening. I sometimes have glimmerings of sense, and in hands presenting no particular difficulty, if they contain plenty of good cards—can manage to scrape along in a way I think fairly satisfactory even—to him, though he never encourages me by saying so. But an awful thing happened the other night. I had played one rubber with him and won it, though it was only a rubber of two instead of a bumper, as it would have been if I had played properly—for being in doubt and remembering the adage, I had led a trump, but it subsequently turned out that the adversaries had called for them. Now I never see an adversaries' call, and but rarely those of my partner, unless when made glaringly conspicuous by a ten and a two, so I led this wretched card with disastrous results.
However, my partner accepted the situation with unexpected suavity, merely remarking pleasantly, as an item of general interest, "The only time my partner ever leads a trump is when the adversaries call." I smiled inanely—what else could I do? for I was dimly conscious that the stricture might have justification in fact. Yes, this was bad; but worse remains behind. In the last hand of the next rubber, my partner had four trumps; so had I; he had, besides a very long suit; hence he extracted the trumps, and we were left with the last two between us, mine being the better. I got the lead, of course, exactly at the time I did not want it; although everyone else knew where the smaller trump was, I did not, so I drew it from my partner's hand, and then led him a card of which he had none in the suit; this card, as ill-luck would have it, belonged to an enormously long suit, of which one of the adversaries had entire control. So this gentleman got in and made about six tricks in it, finishing up with the two; he therefore made with his spades all—indeed, I rather think more tricks than the Colonel ought to have made in his diamonds, each of which, now losing cards, he successively banged down with increasing anger and turbulence of gesture, as the enormity of my crime was borne in upon him. It was the deciding game of a rubber; the adversaries' score had stood at one, while we were at two, and besides, we had had two by honours; as they made four by cards, they went out—and so did I—not without an obbligato accompaniment on muted strings; unwhispered whispers of "confounded blockhead!" "blundering idiot!" "well, of all the born fools!" and similar objurgations.
When I came to think the matter over in cold blood, I could see that my proper course would have been to lead the losing card before drawing my partner's trump. I merely made a mistake (a fatal one I grant) in the order of playing them. That was all.
My friend goes on to make learned remarks about "American leads," "the fourth best," and the difficulties of playing a knave; lead him at once, I think, on Dogberry's principle: and "thank heaven you are rid of a knave."
The depths of my guilt may be guessed from the fact that many of my Mentor's explanations are Hittite to me. People talking of laying up a wretched old age by not playing, I should be laying it up for other people if I did play much. Half-crown points, a partner who knows how to score (those counters and candlesticks, or the machines with little bone grave-stones that shut up with a snap, bother me), and amiable conversation on well-chosen topics while the game goes on, make the kind of Whist that I enjoy. We used to play it in Common Room in the happy past; it was easier than Loo, which I never quite understood. The rigour of the game is the ruin of Whist.
