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To this day very sensible whist-players have a certain belief not, of course, a fixed conviction, but still a certain impression that there is 'luck under a black deuce, and will half mutter some not very gentle maledictions if they turn up as a trump the four of clubs, because it brings ill-luck, and is 'the devil's bed-post. Of course grown-up gamblers have too much general knowledge, too much organised common sense to prolong or cherish such ideas; they are ashamed of entertaining them, though, nevertheless, they cannot entirely drive them out of their minds.
I belong to a Club where there is whist of a night, and not a little amusing is it to hear Brown speak of Thompson's play, and vice versa. But there is one man Greatorex let us call him who is the acknowledged captain and primus of all the whist-players. We all secretly admire him.
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.
Miss Filbert exhausted all the means. She attempted to hold a meeting forward of the smoking cabin, standing for elevation on one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with this the Captain was reluctantly compelled to interfere on behalf of the whist-players inside. In the evening after dinner she established herself in a sheltered corner and sang.
"But they can't prevent me from thinking that it would be more natural for us to cross the bridge on foot, and let the train come after!" But no one heard this sage reflection, nor would anyone have acknowledged its justice. The passengers resumed their places in the cars. Passepartout took his seat without telling what had passed. The whist-players were quite absorbed in their game.
The man I knew who made the most rapid fortune was a builder in the outskirts of Birmingham, who could not write his name, and who, for thirty years of his life, never went to bed sober. I do not say that forgetfulness of trumps should be cultivated by whist-players.
Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still Miss Jemima!" The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players. Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended.
Reclined, with the careless grace that seemed inseparable from every attitude and motion of his person, in one of the great velvet chairs, with a book in his hand, which, to say truth, was turned upside down, but in the lecture of which he seemed absorbed, he heard at one hand the mirthful laughter that circled round young Ardworth, or, in its pauses, caught, on the other side, muttered exclamations from the grave whist-players: "If you had but trumped that diamond, ma'am!"
"But they can't prevent me from thinking that it would be more natural for us to cross the bridge on foot, and let the train come after!" But no one heard this sage reflection, nor would anyone have acknowledged its justice. The passengers resumed their places in the cars. Passepartout took his seat without telling what had passed. The whist-players were quite absorbed in their game.
A few minutes afterwards, the servants entered, the tea-table was removed, chairs were thrust back, a single lady of a certain age volunteered her services at the piano, and dancing began within the ample space which the arch fenced off from the whist-players.
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