We now come to the distrustful player, the
man who has no faith in his partner, and who,
forgetful that his efficiency is entirely dependent
upon a thorough good understanding with his
colleague, bores along alone and unseconded.
This is a lamentable spectacle, and full of its
moral teaching. You see such a man exactly as
he would figure in the real world of life, ever
encountering difficulties which only need the
slightest amount of assistance to combat, but
which, unaided, were insurmountable. You see
him marring and deranging what might have
proved skilful combinations but for his dogged
and stubborn self-reliance. Next in order of
hopelessness is the uncertain, wavering player;
the man deterred by every chance obstacle, and
continually altering his plans to suit some
supposed necessity. He flies from hearts to spades,
and from spades to diamonds; and if you watch
him in the actual world, you will see such a man
desert his party in the House, or his friends out
of it, whenever an adverse incident seems to
threaten them with misfortune.

Look at that careless fellow with the merry
eye and the laughing mouth, and tell me, as he
plays out all his best cards one after the other,
if you do not recognise the spendthrift, that
only lives on the present, and takes no heed
for the future? One half of that abundance he
is dissipating would have achieved a victory if
only expended with judgment and discretion;
but he doesn't care for that; doesn't care when
his melancholy partner explains how and why
they have been beaten, but, with some wise saw
about being jolly under difficulties, is quite
ready to begin again, and be worsted, as he was
before.

Is there a mood of man, is there an element
of mind, or quality of temper, we have not here
before us? The sanguine, the hopeless, the
rash, the timid, the impetuous, the patient, the
forgiving, the relentless, the easily baffled, and
the stubbornly courageous man, are all there;
and there is also the man of memory and the
man of none. The man playing out his game—
just as he lives—from hand to mouth; no
calculation, no foresight, no care for the future in
his heart; and there is, sad spectacle! the
wretched creature who loses his game rather
than play some paltry trump; and that man—
take my word for it—would not spend sixpence
in a cordial to restore life to the poor fellow
rescued from drowning. Don't tell me this
judgment of him is harsh, hasty, or cruel. I
have made these men my study. I have tracked
them home at night, and seen them walk drearily
back to their lodgings in the rain, rather than
bestow a shilling for a cab, though the
rheumatism and the cough will turn out to be a
costlier luxury afterwards.

Another variety also deserves mention, and it
is one with which every whister must be
familiar. The man who cares nothing about the
game and everything for the stake; the man
who has no interest in the changeful fortunes
of the fight, but is intently interested in the
result, and everlastingly inquiring, "What was the
amount of the rubber?" as if the arithmetic was
the real subject for anxiety. Such are, I grieve
to own, the class who form successful men in
the world. They look only to "what pays," and
in this one idea'd pursuit of the profitable, they
always beat out of the field those poor souls who
have notions of credit, character, and distinction.

As for that sanguine but not strong-headed
individual who never suspects the adversary's
strength, in the suit he has just led, because it
has been suffered to go round once unmolested,
I see the germs of an unfortunate speculator,
the victim of Spanish "Threes"—" Poyais
preference shares."

But as "there are manners of men," so are
there whist-players, and it would only be to
catalogue the moods of the one to enumerate
the types of the other: The blindly hopeful
creature, that will play his game out without
the faintest shadow of a chance in his favour,
true emblem of the fellow who actualty does
not know he is ruined till he reads his name
as bankrupt in the Gazette; and his antitype,
the melancholy, despondent man, who, with
four by honours, expects defeat, portraying the
rich annuitant, who awakes every morning with
the horror that he is to end his days in a
poor-house. And let us not forget the plodding,
hesitating, long-meditating player, who will not
lay down on the table some miserable deuce of
clubs without five minutes of what he fancies
to be consideration. Go not to that man with a
subscription-list for a poor family, ask not him
to join you in a little effort to buy winter clothing
for the naked, or firing for the shivering
and destitute; he will listen to you for an hour,
if you like, but he will never give you a
farthing.

I have taken all the dark sides of the
medal here, as my readers will perceive. I
have recorded none of those grand, heroic,
self-devoting traits with which whist abounds;
I have said nothing about those noble bursts
of confidence with which this man will
sacrifice his all that his partner may be triumphant;
as little mention have I made of those
beautiful little episodes of charity, those touching
instances of tender pity with which your
great player overlooks the irregularities of
some weak and erring adversary. Wonderfully
affecting incidents, too, when one remembers
that they come out in the very ardour of conflict:
it is giving quarter in the thick of the battle,
and amidst the dead and the dying. In fact, I
am only fearful that if I but venture out farther
on the vast ocean of Illustration, I may never
see land again. Perhaps, however, I have set
the stone in motion, and other stronger hands
will now lend it the impulse of a push.
Perhaps the great moralist of the age, whoever he be,
will revolve this theory in his mind, and render
its application popular and easy. Perhaps who
knows but the wise men they call Civil Service
Commissioners may introduce whist into the
list of subjects for examination, and tide-waiters
be questioned on the "odd trick?"