With regard to finding fault with one’s partner, I have no apology to offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that might have been gain.  There are many lovers of whist for its own sake to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison spoilt in the carving.  In such a case a gentle expression of disapproval is surely pardonable.  And I have observed that, with one or two exceptions (non Angli sed angeli, men of angelic temper rather than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are not socially the pleasantest.  They are men who ‘play to win,’ and who think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently join the ranks of the Opposition.

What is rather curious—­and I speak with some experience, for I have played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer—­the best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly educated or intellectual.  Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the warriors.  Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good players, they were not in the first class; while the author of ’Guy Livingstone,’ though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in the second.  The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term ’idlers’—­men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do than to play it.

While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are born with a genius for the game, and move up ‘from high to higher,’ through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen whist-players who were not superstitious.  Their credulity is, indeed, proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish.  The country apothecary’s wife who puts the ivory ‘fish’ on the candlestick ’for luck,’ and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to realise more ‘silver threepences,’ are in no way more ridiculous than the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to ’the winning seats’ or ‘the winning cards.’  The idea of going on because ‘the run of luck’ is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of Cetywayo.  The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, be improved by success.  Yet the belief in this absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal.  ’If I am not in a draught, and my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,’ is a remark I have heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte.