I answered: "I play by luck chiefly; I don't know how to play
by skill. But I have generally been lucky." In fact, I had already,
lying by me, several "tricks" I had taken. He answered me:--

"To play by luck is to trust to without; to play by skill is to
trust to within. In this game, Within goes further than Without."

"What are trumps?" I asked.

"Diamonds are trumps," he answered.

I looked at the cards in my hand and said to him:--"I have more
clubs than anything else."

At this he laughed, and seemed all at once quite a youth. "Clubs
are strong cards, after all," he said. "Don't despise the black
suits. I have known some of the best games ever played won by
players holding more clubs than you have."

I examined the cards and found something very odd about them. There
were the four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades. But the
picture cards in my hand seemed different altogether from any I
had ever seen before. One was queen of Clubs, and her face altered
as I looked at it. First it was dark,--almost dusky,--with the
imperial crown on the head; then it seemed quite fair, the crown
changing to a smaller one of English aspect, and the dress also
transforming itself. There was a queen of Hearts, too, in an antique
peasant's gown, with brown hair, and presently this melted into a
suit of armor which shone as if reflecting firelight in its burnished