"What is your father, my pretty maid?" "My father's a farmer, sir," she said. "Would you like to marry, my pretty maid?” "Yes, thank you, I would, sir," she said. "What is your fortune, my pretty maid?" "My face is my fortune, sir," she said. "Then I can't marry you, my pretty maid." "Nobody axed you, sir!" she said. Peter Piper PETER PIPER picked a peck of pickled pepper; A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked. George Meredith Short Citations "He gives good dinners," a candid old critic said, when asked how it was that he could praise a certain poet. In an island of chills and fogs, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the stirrings of the gastric juices. The burlesque Irishman can't be caricatured. Nature strained herself in a fit of absurdity to produce him, and all that art can do is to copy. "We women are the verbs passive of the alliance. We have to learn, and if we take to activity with the best intentions, we conjugate a frightful disturbance." Real happiness is a state of dulness. English women and men feel toward the quick-witted of their species as to aliens, having the demerits of aliens. A quick-witted woman exerting her wit is a foreigner and potentially a criminal. Cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb's feathers. Most of the people one has at a dinner-table are drums. A rub-a-dub-dub on them is the only way to get a sound. When they can be persuaded to do it upon one another, they call it conversation. She was a lady of incisive features bound in stale parchment. Complexion she had none, but she had spotlessness of skin, and sons and daughters just resembling her, like cheaper editions of a precious quarto of a perished type. -From the Novels. F. C. Burnand A Rubber at Whist CHILDERS proposes whist." I never feel certain of myself at whist; I point to the fact that they are four without me. Poss Felmyr says if I sit down he'll cut in presently. "I play?" I reply, "Yes, a little." I am Stenton's partner; Englefield and Childers are against us. Sixpenny points, shilling on the rub. Stenton says to me, "You'll score." Scoring always puzzles me. I know it's done with half a crown, a shilling, a sixpence, and a silver candlestick. Sometimes one bit of money is under the candlestick, sometimes two. Happy Thought. To watch Englefield scoring; soon pick it up again. First Rubber. Stenton deals; Childers is first hand; I'm second. Hearts trumps-the queen. It's wonderful how quick they are in arranging their cards. After I've sorted all mine carefully, I find a trump among the clubs. Having placed him in his position on the right of my hand, I find a stupid Three of Clubs among the spades; settled him. Lastly, a King of Diamonds upside down, which seems to entirely disconcert me; put him right. Englefield says, Come, be quick"-Stenton tells me "not to hurry myself." I say I'm quite ready, and wonder to myself what Childers will lead. Childers leads the Queen of Clubs. I consider for a moment what is the duty of second hand; the word "finessing" occurs to me here. I can't recollect if putting on a three of the same suit is finessing; put on the three and look at my partner to see how he likes it. He is watching the table. Englefield lets it go, my partner lets it go the trick is Childers's. I feel that somehow it's lost through my fault. His lead again-spades. This takes me so by surprise that I have to rearrange my hand, as the spades have got into a lump. I have two spades, an ace and a five. Let me see: "If I play the five I"-I can't see the consequence. "If I play the ace it must win unless it's trumped." Stenton says in a deep voice, "Play away." The three look from one to the other. Being flustered, I play the ace; the trick is mine. I wish it wasn't, as I have to lead; I'd give something if I might consult Poss, who is behind me, or my partner. All the cards look ready for playing, yet I don't like to disturb them. Let me think what's been played already. Stenton asks me "if I'd like to look at the last trick." As this will give me time, and them the idea that I am following out my own peculiar tactics, I embrace the offer. Childers displays the last trick; I look at it. I say, “Thank you,” and he shuts it up again. Immediately afterward I can't recollect what the cards were in that trick; if I did it wouldn't help me. They are becoming impatient. About this time somebody's Queen of Diamonds is taken. I wasn't watching how the trick went, but I am almost certain it was fatal to the Queen of Diamonds; that is to say, if it was the Queen of Diamonds; but I don't like to ask. The next trick, which is something in spades, trumped by Englefield, I pass as of not much importance. Stenton growls, "Didn't I see that he'd got no more spades in his hand?" No, I own I didn't. Stenton, who is not an encouraging partner, grunts to himself. In a subsequent round, I having lost a trick by leading spades, Stenton calls out, "Why, didn't you see they were trumping spades?" I defend myself; I say I did see him, Englefield, trump one spade, but I thought that he hadn't any more trumps. I say this as if I had been reckoning the cards as they've been played. Happy Thought. Try to reckon them, and play by system next rubber. I keep my trumps back till the last; they'll come out and astonish them. They do come out and astonish me. Being taken by surprise, I put on my king when I ought to have played the knave, and both surrender to the ace and queen. I say, "Dear me, how odd!" I think I hear Stenton saying sarcastically, in an undertone, "Oh, yes; confoundedly odd." I try to explain, and he interrupts me at the end of the last deal but two by saying testily, "It's no use talking; if you attend we may just save the odd." Happy Thought. Save the odd. My friend the Queen of Diamonds, who, I thought, had been played, and taken by some one or other at a very early period of the game, suddenly reappears out of my partner's hand, as if she was part of a conjuring trick. Second hand can't follow suit and can't trump. I think I see what he intends me to do here. I've a trump and a small club. "When in doubt," I recollect the infallible rule, "play a trump." I don't think any one expected this trump. Good play. Happy Thought. Trump. I look up diffidently. My partner laughs, so do the others. My partner's is not a pleasant laugh. I can't help asking, "Why, isn't that right? it's ours?" "Oh, yes," says my partner sarcastically, "it is ours." Only," explains little Bob Englefield, "you've trumped your partner's best card." 66 |