THIS resulted from tampering with the discard. Though Mathews (_circa_
A.D. 1800) in two short sentences laid down the true and only principle
of discarding: “If weak in trumps, keep guard on your adversaries’
suits; if strong, throw away from them,” fifty years afterwards it was
discovered by the “little school” that “the old system of discarding
was just this—when not able to follow suit, let your first discard be
from your weakest suit.” Rough on poor Mathews! but the absent are
always wrong.
However, by a process of evolution, to the first step of which no
exception can be taken, we are next told—(_a_) “When you see from the
fall of the cards that there is no probability of bringing in your own
or your partner’s long suit discard originally from your best protected
suit.” “You must play a defensive game.”—_Cavendish._
Then, as the evolution proceeds, and we come to (_b_), we catch the
first glimpse of the woody fibre, “for the sake of a short and easily
remembered rule,” it is the fashion to say, “discard originally from
your strong suit when the adversaries lead trumps, but this aphorism
does not truly express the conditions.” (It does not indeed; far from
it! for the adversaries may lead trumps and the strength may turn out
on the other side; and why, under any circumstances, currency should
be given to an erroneous fashion is a question I have repeatedly asked
in vain), and here the pupils rush in, with that zeal which outruns
discretion, overpower the master and cut the Gordian Knot with (_c_)
_strongest_. Fourthly, I am informed whenever I take my walks abroad in
Whist circles, (_d_) that with trumps declared against me I must not
only discard from my strongest suit, but by that discard point out to
my partner—and I presume my adversaries—the suit I wish led, and we
are all on our backs on the wood pavement.
Is this a defensive game? Surely it is pedantry run mad! Why am I, in
these frightful circumstances, fighting for dear life, and breathing
with the greatest difficulty, to disclose my vital parts to a powerful
and remorseless enemy? Where am I to get a suit from that I wish led?
Why am I to be debarred from using my common sense—if I have any—and
holding on to everything in obedience to my old friend Mathews and
Cavendish on Whist, for both of whom I have the highest respect? If
by good luck I do hold a very strong suit, I used to be able to point
out that fact by discarding the head of it; now I am told “you must
not do that; it is not _the game_”—whatever the game may be; “it shows
the adversary too much;” so that I am in this absurd dilemma—if I
have a really strong suit, I am to keep it dark; if I have a suit in
which I hope to make a trick by remaining very quiet, I am to invite
my partner to put me under the harrow by making me third player. _O
tempora! O mores!_
Bad in itself, and ensnaring to others, this outrageous latter-day
discard is cowardly to a degree; for while it does no particular injury
to the player with a strong hand, it knocks down and jumps upon the
weak vessel.
What am I to do with a suit in which I hold absolutely nothing, say
the two, three, four and five? Did the doctrinaires never hear of such
a suit? One would imagine not. Am I to discard from king, queen and
another, or from knave to four, in order to keep four cards like that?
How about retaining every card of a powerful suit, regardless where
the trumps may be, knowing that unless it can be brought in somehow or
other, the game is gone? When I am compelled to discard from a weak
five suit, is that an order to my partner to lead in a singly or doubly
guarded king?
If these difficulties—and there are numbers of others—only occurred
to me, with my natural modesty, I should consider myself the victim
of some congenital defect; but this is not the case; far from it. The
confusion on this head alone is awful, and what do the authorities
teach us? I have already quoted Mathews and Cavendish on Whist; the
second edition of Clay does not mention the forced discard, but it is
mentioned in the last new and _improved_ edition with a vengeance:
here I learn to my horror and amazement that “the discard from the
_strongest_ suit * * * _is admirably explained and developed in the
‘Laws and Principles of Whist,’ by Cavendish_.”
Now this statement, which was made in 1881, is puzzling. I have already
pointed out that the “laws and principles of Whist” by Cavendish
neither explain nor develope anything of the kind, admirably or
otherwise, before and after that date, Cavendish in _The Field_ has
contradicted it in toto. His latest utterance, on which I can lay
my hand, is this. “The aphorism—discard from your strong suit to an
adverse trump lead is very imperfect”—as any aphorism, attempting to
lay down a fixed law for such an intricate subject, is bound to be—“and
misleading, and often gives rise to misunderstandings between partners
as to the true character of the discard. A player should carefully
consider the aspect of the game at the time the discard is made. With
no indication to guide him, he may assume his partner’s first discard
to be a protective one, if the adversaries have led, or called for
trumps; but if, notwithstanding an adverse lead, he can place the
command of trumps with his partner, or must so place it in order to
save the game, he should assume the reverse.” Here, though somewhat
verbose and obscure, he recognizes that the subject bristles all over
with difficulty.
Now let us return for a moment to the _improved_ Clay. “The discard
from the strongest rests upon, * * * and upon the very reasonable
argument, that the partner is directed to lead the suit indicated by
the discard.” That a protective discard is a direction to my partner
to make me third player in the suit may seem reasonable to the modern
doctrinaire, but it is not the view ordinarily taken of it; then having
produced his highly objectionable animal in _puris naturalibus_, the
Editor winds up by _thanking Cavendish for his imprimatur_.
This way madness lies! What Cavendish? how many Cavendishes are there?
there is certainly a Cavendish on Whist, and there is a Cavendish in
_The Field_; that makes two, on this point pretty much of one mind.
Is there a third, who appears for one brief moment, without father,
mother, or descent, mysterious as Melchizedek, just to contradict both
his namesakes, and then disappears for ever in the ewigkeit? This
conundrum is too much for me; I give it up, merely enquiring with an
ancient philosopher:—
Quousque tandem abutere patientiâ nostrâ?