As a general principle, with the original lead and a very bad hand, it is advisable to efface yourself as much as possible. In such a case, I always have a strong desire to get under the table—I don’t know that it is contrary to either the laws or the etiquette of whist to do so—and I firmly believe it is a better course than leading the trey of trumps; at any rate it is not for the weak hand to dictate how the game should be played; and to step boldly to the front and lead a small trump from two, without a trick behind it, is in my opinion the height of impertinence.
At certain states of the score it may be imperative, in order to save the game, that you should place all the remaining cards, but that is another matter altogether, and if you want to go into it, read Clay on the subject (page 85), though he nowhere suggests that you should commence operations by placing thirty-eight unknown cards.
If your partner has led you a trump, and you—holding ace, queen, to four or more—have made the queen, return the ace; if you are playing Bumblepuppy return a small one, your partner thinking the ace is against him, is almost certain to finesse and lose a trick—then call him names. The reason assigned by the perpetrator of this return is that as he originally held four he is compelled to play the lowest, and it curiously exemplifies his inability to apply even the little knowledge he is possessed of.
With ace, king only, it is customary to lead first the ace and then the king; there is no authority for such a lead,[11] and nothing to be gained by it, except that by leading in this way you probably prevent your partner from signalling in the suit, but if you like to burden yourself with a useless anomaly, you can make a note of it. We started with the hypothesis, that, in the ordinary course of nature, you have fifty years before you, and if you wish to embitter and shorten those years, you will invariably lead the lowest but one of five—it may be, and I am informed is, useful among a few assorted players, “chock-full of science,” but it is caviare to the general[12] and (unlike Wordsworth’s Creature)—
“Too bright and good
For human nature’s daily food.”[13]
For my part I only think it expedient to show five when, with reasonable strength on the part of my partner, I have a fair prospect of bringing in the suit.[14]
It is often better to keep the knowledge of mere length of suit religiously to yourself. Length and strength are not always the same thing; why are giants generally so weak about the knees? Length is often only one element of strength and a very poor one at that, though it may be of use indirectly. With four or five low cards and an observant opponent, it is occasionally a good plan to bottle up the smallest. I have known this missing link so to prey upon that opponent’s mind as to cause him to forget matters of much greater importance.
In bumblepuppy all this is entirely different, you can lead anything you like, in any way you like; here the safest lead is a long weak suit, the longer and weaker it is, the less is your partner able to do you a mischief. With a weak partner, strengthening cards are either futile or dangerous: as he will in all probability at once disembowel himself, the result of leading them is on all fours with the Japanese Hari Kari; whereas if you lead him a small card he will finesse into his boots.