Part II.

“Post tenebras lux.”—Pintsch.

There is one method of forced discarding which is often extremely useful; it is simple to a degree and always practicable; it has been in use for some years, and is approved of by all the good whist-players I have ever come across.

If you have a really strong suit to discard from—a suit that you can order your partner to lead you—signal in it, and throw away the highest card you safely dare.

This was first brought to my notice by Mr. Proctor, and—like Newton’s apple, Columbus’s egg, and many other great discoveries—is almost obtrusively obvious when it is once pointed out.

It is no new invention, for it has been the well-known practice of whist from primæval times.

Possibly known in the cave of Neanderthal.

Its inhabitants, when they had a really powerful suit, discarded an unnecessarily high card. With a quint major, they discarded the ace; with a quart to a king, they discarded the king, and so forth.

Here is a declaration of absolute strength at the very moment it is required; no uncertainty as to whether it is a protective discard, or mere length; it is also flexible,[28] for you can use your own judgment; give the information; conceal it for a time if you think fit, or withhold it altogether.

Minor details—such as that when only one discard is available, a high card would in all probability indicate strength, while a low one (though it might indicate length) would do nothing of the kind, but rather the opposite; and its use under many circumstances, even when your partner is leading trumps—if not at once obvious to your own unassisted intelligence, are better left to the professional development-mongers.

Having a rooted antipathy to formulating an interminable series of minute regulations for exceptional cases, a practice which has done irreparable injury to whist, far be it from me to trench upon their preserve.

The convention I have shown to be venerable, and I believe it to be perfectly legitimate.

Here I begin to tread upon delicate ground, for though whist is entirely made up of conventions, many different views are held as to what a convention is (see note page 60), and when it is and is not legitimate.

Between the Albert Club and the Bloomsbury back parlour there is a great gulf fixed—

“Virginibus puerisque canto,”

and it would be a life-long regret to me if I seduced them from the paths of rectitude.

Still, for practical purposes, I should imagine that a mode of play which is known, or open to be known by all players, and which contravenes neither the laws nor the etiquette of whist, fulfils all the necessary conditions; at all events, it satisfies my moral sense.

If, in addition, it is conducive to trick making,—as it undoubtedly is—I hail it with effusion.

With innumerable treatises; treatises on developments, on counting number, on exceptional play; treatises philosophical and treatises mathematical; with exercises in simple addition; with arrangements for exorcising superfluous winning cards as elaborate as if winning cards were enemies of the human race, and a direct emanation from the evil one, the time has arrived, if possible, to import a little common-sense into the game, and to make an effort to win an occasional trick.