Is a very common practice; it is, therefore, very necessary for you to
be very watchful over your adversary while he deals.
This is a device of old date, but it is easier to be performed with the
small cards used at _ecarté_ than those generally played with at whist.
It consists in secreting a certain card until an opportunity presents
itself of its being available when it is produced, as implied, from the
palm of the hand that secretes it. The story of the hand that was nailed
to the table with a fork, and the proffered apology for the act if no
card was found under it, is too well known to be repeated: but it is not
a solitary instance in the play world. Some sixty years since a member
of Brookes’s Club was playing at quinze with Mr. Fox. At this game a
five is a principal card, and on the person alluded to displaying a five
in his hand, after Mr. Fox supposed them all to have been played, he
complained, with evident chagrin, of the increasing inaccuracy of his
memory. Others, however, were less charitably disposed. The unfair
gamester was watched, and detected in introducing a _fifth five_!