FALSE CARDS, LOGIC, LUCK.
——
“And shall we turn our fangs and claws
Upon our own selves without cause,
For what design, what interest,
Can beast have to encounter beast?”—Hudibras.

There are three kinds of false cards—

(1) Those that deceive everybody;

(2) Those that deceive your opponents only;

(3) Those that deceive your partner only; and a sparing use of the two first—especially towards the end of a hand—is often advantageous;[38] but in playing cards that deceive everybody, you must be prepared to take entire charge of the game yourself, or you will probably have your conduct referred to afterwards. The third is sacred to bumblepuppy.

One thing is very certain, that the original leader is never justified in playing a false card.

Clay’s conclusion does not altogether harmonize with his premises—a very unusual circumstance with[70] him—for after objecting strongly to false cards on high moral grounds, and prefacing his remarks by the expression of a touching belief that in no other position of life would anybody tell him what is untrue, he ultimately arrives at the delicious non sequitur, that if your partner is very bad, or holds miserably weak cards, or towards the end of a hand, you may often play a false card with advantage: why you should do what you know to be wrong, because another person is bad, or weak, or because you hold four cards and not thirteen, or even because such nefarious conduct may benefit yourself, he does not explain, and in default of that explanation he appears stronger as a whist player than a moralist. But the logic of whist is a thing per se, utterly dissimilar to any known form of argument;[39] it finds vent in such syllogisms as “You ought to have known I had all the spades, I led a diamond,” or, “I must have the entire suit of clubs, I discarded the deuce;” though the usual reply is “the deuce you did,” this is merely paltering with a serious subject; the only effective argument is to throw[71] something at the speaker’s head—the argumentum ad hominem—(of course this would create more or less unpleasantness at first, but the speaker would soon find his level, if you hit him hard enough) “unfortunately this discipline by which such persons were put to open penance and punished in this world—that others admonished by their example might be afraid to offend”—has fallen into desuetude; until the said discipline be restored again, which—although it is much to be wished[40]............