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“Vir bonus est quis?

Qui consulta patrum, qui leges jaraque servat.”—Eton Grammar.

I have mentioned that there are ninety-one laws. The wording of the first is not strictly accurate; it ought to be “The rubber is generally the best of three games,” for though I myself have never seen more than four, it may consist of any number, as the following decisions show:

Decision A.—The rubber is over when one side has won two games and remembers it has done so: this memory must be brought to bear before the other side has won two games and remembers it has done so.

Decision B.—If a game is forgotten, it is no part of the losers’ duty to remind the winners of the fact.

Law 5.—This law is clear enough; still the first time you revoke and are found out, if your opponents hold honours and you have nothing scored—however many you have made by cards—they will claim a treble: you should be prepared for this. The claim is wrong, but in spite of that—possibly because of it—“they all do it.”

Law 7.—Decision.—You must call your honours audibly, but you are not obliged to yell because your adversaries are quarrelling.

Law 14.—Always get hold of the cards before cutting, and place a high card at one end of the pack and a low one at the other, then cut last and take either card you prefer: by this means you select your partner, this is an admirable coup and tends to the greatest happiness of the greatest number (Note A, page 2) but it must be executed with judgment, for if you are detected your happiness will not be increased, rather the reverse. Some purists, anxious to be on the safe side, only keep an eye on the bottom card, and take it when it suits them.

Law 34.—Until the last few years, after you had cut the cards into two distinct packets, if the dealer thought fit to knock one of them over, leave a card on the table, or drop half-a-dozen or so about, it was a mis-deal on the ground that these proceedings were opposed to one or other of the next two laws, 35 and 36, but the latest decision is that the dealer can maltreat the pack in any way he likes and as often as he likes, and compel you to keep on cutting de die in diem.

Old Decision.—“You cannot make your adversary cut a second time; when you left a card on the table it could not be said that there was a confusion in the cutting, it is a mis-deal.”

New Decision.—“There is nothing in the laws to make this a mis-deal. The play comes under the term ‘Confusion of the cards,’ and there must be a fresh deal.”

If you see a potent, grave, and reverend seignior carefully lubricating his thumb with saliva, don’t imagine he is preparing it for deglutition, he is only about to deal. Even if he should swallow it, why interfere? he will not hurt you; it is not your thumb. Should you suffer from acute hyperæsthesis you can follow the example of an old friend of mine, who once rose from the table in his terror, and returned armed with a large pair of black kid gloves which he wore during the remainder of the seance: though the effect was funereal—not to say ghastly—it was attended with the best results in this case, but it is just as likely to lead to ill-feeling, and therefore to be deprecated. Leave the matter to time! Apart from the cards being glazed with lead, a single pack has been found to contain a fifth of an ounce of arsenic, and there is no known antidote. Even if not immediately fatal, the practice must be very deleterious. A whist enthusiast with a greater turn for mathematics than I can lay claim to, has counted from six to seven thousand bacteria on each square centimetre of a playing card, and makes this ghastly deduction: “it is really dreadful to reflect upon the colony of microbes which a person who moistens his thumb before dealing may convey into his mouth, and thence into his system.”—Standard, Nov. 2nd, 1893. “Everything comes to the man who can wait,” and while you are waiting always sit on the dealer’s right.

Law 37.—An incorrect or imperfect pack is a pack containing duplicates or more or less than fifty-two cards, but it is neither incorrect nor imperfect because you think fit to place any number of your own cards in the other pack, or to supplement them with one from it. Vide Laws 42, 46.

Law 42.—If you take one card from the other pack, it is clear that you subject yourself to a penalty; if you take more than one the matter is not so clear; possibly you may gain by it; should you wish to have the point settled, any time you have a bad hand add the other pack to it; then complain that you have sixty-five cards, throw them up, claim a new deal under Rule 37, and see what comes of it.

Law 45.—Taking up your cards during the deal has one advantage, that if you can get your hand sorted and begin to play without waiting for the dealer, you save time, and time is reported to be money. To counter-balance this there are two attendant disadvantages, you prevent the possibility of a mis-deal, and any card exposed by your officiousness gives the dealer the option of a new deal.

Law 46.—Under this law it is manifest that—the other hands being correct—your hand may consist of any number of cards from one to thirteen, and if you once play to a trick—however many you may be short—you will have to find them or be responsible for them. See Law 70.

Law 91.—If this law, which is the main cause of inattention and innumerable improper intimations, were abolished, Whist would be greatly improved; and I have never met with a good Whist player who was not of the same opinion.

The chapter on etiquette is good sense and good English, and is worthy of much more attention than is usually given to it.

In addition to their ambiguity and sins of commission, there is also a sin of omission; there is no limit as to time, and it seems desirable there should be; I would suggest—as allowing the hesitating player reasonable latitude—one of those sand glasses, supposed to be useful for boiling an egg; there is no sense in giving him time enough to addle his egg.

Though these laws appear more difficult of access than I had imagined, they are not the laws of which the only copy was destroyed by Moses; I have seen them myself in Clay, Cavendish, and the “Art of Practical Whist,” and if you are unable to get any of these works from Mudie’s, there are copies of each in the British Museum, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.

Before or immediately after breakfast is the best time to play; then, if ever, the intellect is clear, the attention undistracted; in the afternoon you are exhausted by the labours of the day, and your evenings should be devoted to the morrow’s lessons or a quiet nap (not the round game of that ilk).