(7) Open a new suit every time you have the lead.
(8) Never pay any attention to your partner’s first discard, unless it is a forced discard (page 32); lead your own suit.
(9) Never force him under any circumstances unless you hold at least five trumps with two honours; even if you lose the rubber by it, play “the Game!”
(10) Devote all your remaining energies to looking for a signal in the last trick. If you are unable to discover which was your partner’s card—after keeping the table waiting for two minutes—enquire what trumps are, and lead him one on suspicion.
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Play all your cards alike without emphasis or hesitation; how can you expect your partner to have any confidence in your play when it is evident to him from your hesitation that you have no confidence in it yourself?
If your partner renounces, and you think fit to enquire whether he is void of the suit, do so quietly; don’t offer a hint for his future guidance by glaring or yelling at him.
Don’t ask idiotic questions; if you led an ace, and the two, three, and four are played to the trick, what is the use of asking your partner to draw his card? If you hold all the remaining cards of a suit, why enquire whether he has any?
Don’t talk in the middle of the hand.[49] However you may be tempted to use bad language—and I must admit the temptation is often very great—always recollect that though your Latin grammar says “humanum est irasci,” the antidote grows near the bane, for—at the bottom of the very preceding page—it also says “pi orant taciti.”
“’Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain.”—Pope.