ll_ ask a question to-day which this
day week would be unanswerable. What is that but "playing his card out
of time"? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the
unlucky "something" being the key-note to his party's politics which
he has thus disclosed. What is this but "showing his hand"? Hear that
dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has
just asserted--"trumping," as it were, "his partner's trick." Or that
still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken "the
lead out of the hand" that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would
there be one--even one--of these solecisms committed in an age when
Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and
practice of the odd trick?

Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston "forces the hand" of
the Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon
the card Lord Russell has let drop, and "calls on him to play it." And
in the face of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered
creatures Leech gives us in 'Punch,' who, if asked, "Can they play?"
answer with a contemptuous ha-ha laugh, "I rather think not."

To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude
occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand's
sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable
advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down
in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and
brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era.
By what other agency--through what fortuitous combination of events
other than the game--could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How
could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual
intimacy?

It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this
situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do
not possess--any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest
inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical
of those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries
of this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in
the lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance.
Not one of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet
he was a good player: too venturous, perhaps--too dashing--but splendid
with "