"But they have all the trumps," I said.

"No," he answered, "you have the highest trump of all in your own
hand. It is the first and the last. You may take every card they
have with that, for it is the chief of the whole series. But you
have spades too, and high ones." (He seemed to know what I had.)

"Diamonds are better than spades," I answered. "And nearly all
my cards are black ones. Besides, I can't count, it wants so much
thinking. Can't you come over here and play for me?"

He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed." No," he
replied, "that is against the law of the game. You must play for
yourself. Think it out."

He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an
intonation that they dissipated the rest of the dream, and I remember
no more of it. But I did "think it out;" and I found it was a parable;
of Karma.

--Atcham, Dec. 7, 1883





XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse