as respects their men-servants; hardly more so, in fact, than the Hundred Thousand are in regard to their maids.  The men-servants, however, are not so ignorant of their duties as are the latter, and if only their masters would have the courage to tell the truth when giving them their ‘characters,’ there would be a great improvement in them.  Against the masters themselves (unlike the mistresses) I have never heard much complaint.  Most of them object to be ‘bothered’ and ‘troubled,’ and are willing enough to put everything into their man’s hands, including the key of the Cellar, if only they could trust him; but at present, alas! this is a very large ‘If.’

WHIST-PLAYERS.

If cards are the Devil’s books, Whist is the edition de luxe of them.  Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive game of ‘All Fours’ has always held its own against it.  I have known but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist.  One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player.  He called himself an amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his proceedings were even ultra-professional.  On the Turf men are almost as equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more self-respect contented themselves with backing him.  The other example I have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, pursued the science under considerable difficulties.  A sort of card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played the cards for him by verbal direction.  Both these men played a very good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort.  The asking for trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe.

Of course, many persons join the ‘upper ten’ who come from the lower twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely make first-rate players.  Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young for any excellence to be attained in it.  Of this Metternich was a striking example.  If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to that class by whom, in conjunction