Objections have repeatedly been taken to these conventions on moral grounds, but as long as the Church and Stage Guild and kindred associations exist, there seems no reason why we should be troubled to look after our own morality.
For my own part, although believing the principle to be extremely doubtful and the extension far from clear, I am quite prepared to admit that when you have a reasonable expectation of bringing in a five suit, it is desirable that you should make your partner acquainted with the exact length of it, but I am equally prepared to deny its expediency when there is no chance of bringing it in; if such a suit must be played, and you may be so unfortunately placed that it is unavoidable, it would be much better to keep the length of it buried in your own bosom.
Oddly enough when another writer, emulous of extending the master, and seduced by the analogy that what was sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander, suggested that if it was imperative to lead the lowest but one of five, it must be equally obligatory to lead the lowest but two of six; (indeed so clear is this next link in the chain, that it was the very first thought of myself and some half-dozen other light-minded persons, the moment we heard of the principle; but, by ill luck, the seed fell on barren ground, for so far were we from realizing the importance of our discovery, and taking immediate steps to protect the patent, that, sad to relate, solvuntur tabulæ risu), we find Cavendish in The Field for a time deprecating such an eminently logical extension, till I wake up one Saturday morning and read that the antepenultimate does not go far enough, and that under pain of becoming fossils, we must all lead the lowest but three of seven, but four of eight, and so on until we arrive at the lowest but nine of thirteen, when further extension in that direction becomes impracticable.
Fortunately this arrangement has been simplified, for the game would have become even slower than it is, if whenever a player had a ten suit, he had to repeat to himself, lowest but one of five, two of six, three of seven, till he eventually arrived at lowest but six of ten, and after much laborious whittling at the small end of nothing, the ultimate outcome is, with any number of a suit from five to thirteen, to lead the top but three.
Apropos of this same ultimate outcome, in the Westminster Papers for January, 1875, there is a remarkable statement: “We have the opinion, never published, of a personal friend, that while you ought to lead the lowest card in four suits, you should lead the third from the top in five suits;” and this anonymous genius is still “unwept, unhonoured and unsung.” Such is fame!
SOME PILLARS OF THE EDIFICE.
PILLAR NO. 1.—THE PHILOSOPHY OF WHIST.
In case the ipse dixit of Cavendish in The Field, or “the preface,” should fail to convince, we have also had the sacred name of Philosophy dragged in to countenance these proceedings.