Bearing in mind the advice attributed to TALLEYRAND, I have
conscientiously endeavoured to become a Whist-player; but it is
becoming increasingly obvious to me, that owing to the malison
pronounced at my birth, my room is generally preferred to my company.
And yet I have studied the subject according to my lights. Every
instance of Whist in fiction which comes under my notice receives my
undivided attention, and when I read Miss BROUGHTON, such a sentence
as, "I suppose," she said, "that it's the right thing to play out all
one's aces first? Her partner conscientiously endeavoured to veil the
expression of extreme dissent which this proposition called forth,
and with such success that the ace of hearts instantly and confidently
followed his brother."

When I read hints like these, I garner them up for my own future use.
I have pored over every known text-book on the subject, from MATTHEWS
and HOYLE to CAVENDISH. I once went so far as to learn the proper
leads by rote, forgetting them all within a week; and owing to my
inveterate habit of endeavouring to justify the most flagitious acts
by a supposed reference to authority, have earned for myself the name
of "Pole."

There are some with whom I play, who contrive to make me feel more at
my ease than do others, and even look upon me in virtue of my playing
with "those men at the Club" as one having authority; for among
the blind the one-eyed man is king. There is my Mother-in-law for
instance, now I really enjoy a rubber with _her_. We sit down after
dinner at a table scant of cloth, and either much too small or so
inconveniently large that I cannot see the trump at the other end of
it. She usually begins operations by misdealing, which is precisely
what always happens to me with a new pack; nor do I yet understand