As, humanly speaking, you will probably play something for the next fifty years, should you select either Whist or Bumblepuppy,[1] it will be as well for your own comfort—the comfort of others is a minor consideration[2]—to have some idea of their general principles; but first you must decide which of these two games you intend to play, for though they are often confounded together, and are both supposed to be governed by the same ninety-one laws and a chapter on etiquette, they differ much more distinctly than the chalk and cheese of the present day. Professor Pole in his “Theory of Whist,” Appendix B, has made a very skilful attempt (by modifying the maxims of Whist) to make the two games into a kind of emulsion. I was rather taken with this, and having been informed that the most incongruous materials will mix, if you only shake them together long enough, I have given this plan a fair trial, and failed.
It may be that I had not sufficient patience and perseverance, but the principal cause of failure I found to be this: the Bumblepuppist, like Artemus Ward’s bear, “can be taught many interesting things but is unreliable;” he only admires his own eccentricities, and if a person of respectable antecedents gets up a little pyrotechnic display of false cards for his own private delectation, the Bumblepuppist utterly misses the point of the joke, he fails even to see that it is clever: if such a comparison may be drawn without offence, he doesn’t consider that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
In the face of this difficulty, I should recommend you to treat them as separate games: as you go down in one scale and up in the other they closely approximate; that extremes meet is a law of nature, and between the worst Whist and the best Bumblepuppy it is almost impossible to draw the line.
Other elementary forms, protozoa for instance, are often so much alike that it is difficult to decide whether they are plants or animals; but representative specimens of each game, beyond being found at the same table, (in scientific slang, having the same habitat,) have scarcely one point in common, you might just as reasonably mistake horse-radish for beef.
If you elect Whist (I shall refer to the laws later on) begin by learning the leads, and the ordinary play of the second, third and fourth hand, which you will find in any Whist Book;[3] this can be done in a few days; then after cutting for partners (see [note] to [Law 14]) as soon as the cards are dealt, not before (see note to [Law 45]),
(1) Take up your hand;
(2) Count your cards (see notes to Laws 42 & 46);
(3) Sort them into suits;
(4) Look them over carefully;