e also determined, as was this
challenge--"

"Very well!" and I prepare for still another rearrangement. But here I
reflect that this could be endless and not at all interesting.

I dismiss the fatalist as a quibbler and play on. Now there is no
dispute, unless there be other quibblers. Fixed is the order in which
the cards shall fall, eight at a time. There is pure fatalism. But in
the movings after each eight are dealt, I shall consciously choose and
judge, which is pure free will--or an imitation of it sufficiently
colorable to satisfy any, but quibblers. There, for me, is the fatalism
of body, the free will of soul. Of these I learn when I play the game.

Now my first eight cards are down in a horizontal row. There are two
kings among them, which is auspicious, for kings must be placed sometime
at the top. There is a red queen, also auspicious, to be placed on one
of the black kings. There is an ace of diamonds and its deuce. Good,
again! The ace is placed above the row, beginning a row of aces to be
placed there as fast as they fall, and the deuce is placed atop of it,
for in that row the suits will be built _up_, each in its kind. In the
lower rows the suits are to be built down and crossed, as when I played
the red queen on the black king, so that only the top of his crowned
head can be seen. Then I play a red eight on a black nine and a black
seven on the red eight. I am now left most fortunately with five spaces
when I deal off my second row of eight,--five spaces into which, it may
be, a king or two shall happily fall.

The game usually becomes intense after the third eight cards are played.
By that time a choice must be made. Shall this black six or the other be
played on the red seven? One must be wise, for either will release
important cards.

The game has started so well that it promises to play out too
easily--which is one of its tricks. Presently a deuce will be covered by
a king for which no space is ready, a dark queen will be buried under a
succession of smaller cards, crowding along with apparent carelessness,
but relentlessly. Now a space is opened for the king that covers the
deuce, but the king has meantime been covered by an insignificant but
unmanageable four-spot, and cannot be reached. The game is not so
absurdly easy as it promised to be. Still it may be won by clever
playing. There follow eight cards that prove to be immovable, and the
issue is almost in doubt. Now the last eight cards