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I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which make of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that walks the earth.

I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. “I used to play a good deal with Rechberg,” said he, “and took pleasure in worrying him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with anything that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each game was followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian.

“One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg had displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself opposed to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a large assembly of spectators–what the French designate as la galerie. Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played a card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his cards upon the table and stared fixedly at me.

“‘In all my experience of Whist,’ said he, deliberately, ‘I never saw the equal of that.’

“‘Of what?’ asked!

“‘Of the card you have just played,’ rejoined he. ‘It is not merely that such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually stultifies all your own combinations.’

“‘I think differently, Count,’ said I. ‘I maintain that it is good play, and I abide by it.’

“‘Let us decide it by a wager,’ said he.

“‘In what way?’

“‘Thus: We shall leave the question to the galerie. You shall allege what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall decide if they accept them as valid.’

“‘I agree. What will you bet?’

“‘Ten napoleons–twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!’ cried he, warmly.

“‘I shall say ten. You don’t like losing, and I don’t want to punish you too heavily.’

“‘There is the jury, sir,’ said he, haughtily; ‘make your case.’

“‘The wager is this,’ said I, ‘that, to win, I shall satisfy these gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good reason.’

“‘Yes.’

“‘My reason was this, then–I looked into your hand!’

“I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock.”

It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced the best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the superiors of the military.

Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and more subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play which others rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of difficulties, and always made their losses as small as possible. Where they broke down was when they were linked with a bad partner: they invariably played on a level which he could never attain to, and in this way cross purposes and misunderstandings were certain to ensue.

Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play too much for the galerie. The habit of appealing to the jury jags and blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to the actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to the men in the courts below.

Physicians are seldom first-rate players–they are always behind their age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid–they regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it.