L.W.F."

* * * * *

CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

VI.--THE DUFFER AT WHIST.

Whist, it seems to me, is an affair of eyes, memory, and calculative
ratiocination. As to eyes, I have a private theory that mine are
bewitched. It is not mere short sight. At school and college I have
seen Greek words on the printed page, and translated them correctly,
and come to grief, because these words, on inspection, were somehow
not there. Explain this I cannot, but it is a fact. The same with
Whist; I see spades where clubs are, and diamonds for hearts, and a
cold world accuses me of revoking and of carelessness, but it is _not
_ carelessness. It is something gone askew in phenomena. Thus, when
I am a witness as to facts in a trial, perjury is the softest word
for my testimony, so the Court thinks, because the Court is blessed
with the usual relations between objective facts, and subjective
impressions. I admit that I am less fortunate, but when I try to go
into this, I am interrupted. However, this is why I revoke.

[Illustration]

Then as to memory, I have none, for cards. It is extremely difficult,
indeed impossible, to recall who played what, after the cards are once
out of sight. I could tell you, like the man in the story, that such
and such a statement is on the ninety sixth page of the fifth volume
of GIBBON, the page on the left, half-way down; useless things of that