SQUIRE (growling like a bear).—“I hear nothing but proverbs ever since we had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, ma’am.”
Mrs. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted).—“It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr. Hazeldean.”
SQUIRE.—“What! Rickeybockey?”
MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).—“Signor Riccabocca.”
PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).—“Are we playing at whist, or are we not?”
The squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain Higginbotham’s lead of the ace of hearts. Now the captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts, four trumps to the queen, and nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of hearts in the adversary’s hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The captain hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped by the squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as becomes a military man in such dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps in the chance of finding his partner strong and so bringing in his long suit.
SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the captain).—“Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey,—time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign chaps. He’ll not come,—that’s all I know.”
PARSON (aghast at seeing the captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr. Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades, of which he has only one, the cards all falling in suits, while he has not a single other chance of a trick in his hand).—“Really, Squire, we had better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary way,—jabber, jabber, jabber!”
SQUIRE.—“Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!—trumps, Barney? Thank ye for that!” And the squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave, with two other trumps. Squire takes the parson’s ten with his knave, and plays out ace king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the captain’s queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades of which the parson has only one,—and the captain, indeed, but two,—forces out the captain’s queen, and wins the game in a canter.
PARSON (with a look at the captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder).—“That, I suppose, is the new-fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, ‘First save the game, then try to win it.’”