THE PETER AND ITS PECULIARITIES.
——
“Petrus nimium admiratur se.”—Eton Grammar.

“The base vulgar do call.”—Shakespeare.

Some years ago a simple piece of mechanism, to which somehow or other very undue importance has been attached, was introduced to the Whist world; you play a higher card before a lower one—unnecessarily—to indicate that you hold good trumps, and want them out.[30]

You can want this for two reasons:

(1) Because you have the seven best trumps. There is no objection to your signalling here, though it is quite uncalled for; if you have the game in your own hand, you can either lead the lowest but two of six, stand on your head, or execute any other—what it is the odd fashion to call—convention the authority of[60] the day may think fit to invent, as long as you do not come into collision with law 5.[31]

(2) Because you have a good trump hand, and the fall of the cards shows that unless you get them out, your winning cards or your partner’s will be ruffed. Here is a good legitimate reason, but when everything is going nicely, and your partner making the tricks, that you should interfere with this merely because you have five trumps—or nine for the matter of that—is the height of absurdity. It may be an interesting fact for him to know, on the second round of a plain suit, that you hold five trumps, just as there are numerous other interesting facts which he may[61] also ascertain at the same time, e.g., that you have led a singleton, that you hold no honour in your own suit, and so on, but none of them justifies him in ruining his own hand and devoting his best trump to destruction.

You ought to understand the signaller to say, “Get the lead at any cost the first moment you can, play your highest trump, and you shall see something remarkable.”[32]

This is rather a large order, and when you find as the result of your best attempts to execute it, that that promised something is not uncommonly the loss of the rubber, though it will be a shock to you at first, you will soon get accustomed to it.

It is even a dangerous practice to signal when the adversaries will most likely have the lead on its completion; they at once adapt their play to the circumstances. I have seen innumerable games of whist not won, and many a game lost, by absurd signalling; still Whist players suffering from Peter on the brain constantly refuse to ruff a winning card in order to disclose a signal in the discard. If they wanted[62] trumps led, it occurs to the ordinary mind that the simplest plan would be to win the trick and lead them, and as they decline to do so, the only conclusion is that they regard signalling for the mere sake of signalling to be in itself so noble an end that, to attain it, it is worth while to announce to their opponents that they had better save the game at once, and at the same time to present them with at least one trick towards it.[33]
“O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true.”
“By Heaven! he echoes.”—Othello.

If you only want the odd trick, signalling is about the safest way to miss it. Any two decent players would, in a vast majority of cases, get on exactly as[63] well if the Peter had never been invented, while two bad players—assuming they can possibly miss the game with all the trumps—generally do so by its assistance.[34] Where it would be useful is when, with moderate strength in trumps, and the cards declared in your favour, you want trumps led at all hazards. Unfortunately, if at such a crisis as this, your partner is not equal to leading them without a call, he is certain not to see it, although he is missing all the other points of the game in what he calls looking for it. This looking for a Peter is an oddly-named and peculiar form of amusement appertaining not only to Bumblepuppy, but also to Whist. Among all those people who have attended the University Boat Race during the last half-century, I apprehend not one went to look for it, they went to see it, and just as you would see that race, so you should see the[64] signal. Never look for it! look at it! It is just as obvious as any other circumstance that occurs in the play; instead of this, after much looking, it is generally overlooked altogether.
Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ips?.

They come to look, and end by making spectacles of themselves.[35]

If you must look for it, at any rate don’t look for it in the last trick; you would scarcely look for the Boat Race as you were going to church the next day. Still, Cowper—though he clearly disapproves of the signal and calls it senseless—seems, if he is to be annoyed with it, to advocate this—
“’Tis well if look’d for at so late a day
In the last scene of such a senseless play.”

What the signal for trumps ought to............