Then as to memory, I have none, for cards. It is extremely difficult, indeed impossible, to recall who played what, after the cards are once out of sight. I could tell you, like the man in the story, that such and such a statement is on the ninety sixth page of the fifth volume of GIBBON, the page on the left, half-way down; useless things of that sort I remember: cards, not. As to calculation and inferences, I give it up. I just first play out all my kings, then all my aces, I lead trumps, if I have a bunch of them, and then it is my partner's turn to make his little points. I return his lead when I happen to think of it, which is not often. That is all I have to confess, but I have a friend, a brilliant player I call him, and he permits me to contribute his experiences, as mine are short and simple. To my mind, Whist would not be a bad game, if the element of skill were excluded; but give me Roulette. If foreign ladies would not snatch up my winnings, I should be a master at Roulette, where genius is really served, for I play on inspiration merely. But let me turn to the confessions of my friend, my Mentor, I may call him, a man who is a Member of the Burlington itself, one who has had losses, go to! Hear him speak:—
"I have always sympathised," he says, "with Mr. Pickwick, in regard to his experiences at Whist; that is to say, his experience on the second occasion narrated in his history. The first time, it will be remembered, all went well, when, owing to unfortunate lapses on the part of 'the criminal Miller,' who omitted to 'trump the diamond' and subsequently revoked, he and the fat gentleman were worsted in an encounter with Mr. Wardle's mother and the immortal hero.
"But at Bath there was a different tale to tell, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph and Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, proved too able for him and Miss Bolo, who when he played a wrong card, which, like me, he probably did every other time, looked a small armoury of daggers, and subsequently in a beautiful instance of the figure known to the grammarian as Hendiadys, went home in tears and a Sedan chair."
Bearing in mind the advice attributed to TALLEYRAND, I have conscientiously endeavoured to become a Whist-player; but it is becoming increasingly obvious to me, that owing to the malison pronounced at my birth, my room is generally preferred to my company. And yet I have studied the subject according to my lights. Every instance of Whist in fiction which comes under my notice receives my undivided attention, and when I read Miss BROUGHTON, such a sentence as, "I suppose," she said, "that it's the right thing to play out all one's aces first? Her partner conscientiously endeavoured to veil the expression of extreme dissent which this proposition called forth, and with such success that the ace of hearts instantly and confidently followed his brother."
When I read hints like these, I garner them up for my own future use. I have pored over every known text-book on the subject, from MATTHEWS and HOYLE to CAVENDISH. I once went so far as to learn the proper leads by rote, forgetting them all within a week; and owing to my inveterate habit of endeavouring to justify the most flagitious acts by a supposed reference to authority, have earned for myself the name of "Pole."
There are some with whom I play, who contrive to make me feel more at my ease than do others, and even look upon me in virtue of my playing with "those men at the Club" as one having authority; for among the blind the one-eyed man is king. There is my Mother-in-law for instance, now I really enjoy a rubber with her. We sit down after dinner at a table scant of cloth, and either much too small or so inconveniently large that I cannot see the trump at the other end of it. She usually begins operations by misdealing, which is precisely what always happens to me with a new pack; nor do I yet understand how it is that the expert manages to deal at about sixty miles an hour without a mistake, whereas when my turn comes every other card seems to get stuck to its neighbour by a very superior kind of glue, so that they all come out in batches of twos and threes as it were, instead of one by one.
But when the deal has come right, her next step is to sort her cards, which she does by placing all her trumps apart from the others between her third and fourth fingers; I can thus tell how many she has, and am further assisted by her generally dropping one or two in the process face upwards on the table. This would be punishable at the Club; but as she would consider it "mean" were any allusions made to it, nothing happens. Towards the end of the hand her attention is apt to wander, and owing to her abstraction play comes to a dead halt. When a hint is offered that we are waiting for her, with prompt and business-like alacrity but regardless of the rigorous formula, "Place your cards, please," she will say, "Who led a spade?" there being at the time a club, a heart, and a diamond on the table. Then, being the only one who has a card of the leader's suit left, she revokes but is not found out. When she leads out of turn, as happens on an average four or five times every rubber, if I am against her, I call a suit from her partner, upon which she says, flaring up, "Is that the way you play at the Club? 'Cheats never thrive.'" Nor do we, for the simple reason, that she seldom holds less than three honours in each suit, and from five to six trumps besides!
This, as I said, is the sort of Whist I rather enjoy; but when it comes to playing in sober earnest at the Club, there is a different tale to tell.
(This different tale will be told in the Duffer's next.)