The only verses, by the way, he ever got by heart. He never cared to play much with the Muses. They stick, he used to say, at Nine.
William can sit longer—drink less—say as little—pay or receive as much—shuffle as well—and cut as deeply as any man on earth. You may leave him safely after dinner, and catch him at breakfast time without alteration of attitude or look. He is a small statue erected in honour of whist, and like Eloquence, “holds his hand well up.” He is content to ring the changes on thirteen cards a long Midsummer night; for he does not play at cards—he works at them, and considering the returns, for very low wages. William never was particularly lucky; but he bears the twos and threes with as much equanimity as any one, and seems, horticulturally speaking, to have grafted Patience upon Whist. I do not know whether it is the family motto, but he has upon his seal—with the great Mogul for a crest—the inscription of “Packs in Bello.”
William is now getting old (nearly fifty-two), with an asthma; which he says makes him rather “weak in trumps.” He is preparing himself accordingly to “take down his score,” and has made his will, bequeathing all he has or has not, to a whist club. His funeral he directs to be quite private, and his gravestone a plain one, and especially “that there be no cherubims carved thereon, forasmuch,”—says this characteristic document, “that they never hold Honours.”
A DOUBLE AT LONG’S.
THE FOX AND THE HEN.
A FABLE.
Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer Southcote to Northcote.—PIGROGROMITUS.
ONE day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,