Punch (102.1892)

March 12, 1892.] punch, or the london charivari.

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125

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. Sbe usually begins eperations 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 eome

CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

YL—THE DUFFER AT WHIST.

Whist, it seems to me, is an affair of eyes, memory, and calculative
ratiocination. As to eyes, I have a private theory that mine are
bewitched. It is not mere short sight. At school and college I have
seen Greek words on the printed page, and translated them correctly,
and come to grief, because these words, on inspection, were somehow
not there. Explain this I cannot, but it is a fact. The same with
Whist; I see spades where clubs are, and diamonds for hearts, and a
cold world accuses me of revoking and of carelessness, but it is not
carelessness. It is something gone askew in phenomena. Thus,
when I am a witness as to facts in a trial, perjury is the softest
word for my testimony, so the Court thinks, because the Court is
Messed with the usual relations between objective facts, and sub-
jective impressions. I admit that I am less fortunate, but when I
try to go into this, I am interrupted. However, this is why I revoke.

Then as to memory, I have none, for cards. It is extremely
difficult, indeed impossible, to recall who played what, after the

^Pickwick, in regard to his ., .--'l*-. ^t ^^^^ ' ^ qju^ p ( Cheats' never

experiences at Whist; that is thrive.' " Nor do we, for the

simple reason, that she seldom holds less than three honours in each

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. War die'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 Boh, 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 en

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 Buffer's next.)

" Airy Fairy Lilly Un ! "—One day last week, Mr. W. S. Lilly
—i.e, W. "Shibboleths" Lilly—delivered an excellent lecture on
the Papal-Italian question, and although at Birmingham, it was by
no means a brummagem discourse. But to quote the immortal
ballad of Billy Taylor, "When the Captain he come for to hear
on't, He werry much applauded what she'd done," and, to apply the
lines to the present instance, " When the Pope he comes for to hear
on't," will he " werry much applaud," the opinions honestly and cour-
teously enough expressed in this lecture ? By the way, " Leo and
the Lilly " would make a fine subject for a historical cartoon. The
learned Lecturer took care to observe, with all the true modesty of
the humble flower from which his name is derived, that he spoke
only the opinion of a party, which party, whether small, consider-
deavoured to veil the expression of extreme dissent which this i able, or large, his audience could judge for themselves with the

proposition called forth, and with such success that the ace of hearts j unclothed optic, as the party in question was, not to put too fine a
instantly and confidently followed his brother." I point on it, Himself.