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PATHETIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT STATE OF MR. GEORGE ALEXANDER.—­“He is running WILDE at the St. James’s Theatre.—­Yours, L.W.F.”

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CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

VI.—­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 blessed with the usual relations between objective facts, and subjective 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.

[Illustration]

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.