Dreams and Dream-Stories by Anna Kingsford

Dreams and Dream-Stories by Anna Kingsford
cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades. It was the personage behind my chair who
dealt the cards always. I said to my partner: — “It is difficult to play at all, whether by luck or by skill, for
I get such a bad hand dealt me each time.
“That is your fault,” he said. “Play your best with what you have, and next time you will get better
cards.”[Page 58]
“How can that be I asked.
“Because after each game, the tricks you take are added to the bottom of the pack which the dealer
holds, and you get the honors you have taken up from the table. Play well and take all you can. But you
must put more head into it. You trust too much to fortune. Don’t blame the dealer; he can’t see.”
“I shall lose this game,” I said presently, for the two persons playing against us seemed to be taking up
all the cards quickly, and the lead never came to my turn.
“It is because you don’t count your points before putting down a card,” my partner said. “If they play high
numbers, you must play higher.”
“But they have all the trumps,” I said.
“No,” he answered, “you have the highest trump of all in your own hand. It is the first and the last. You
may take every card they have with that, for it is the chief of the whole series. But you have spades too,
and high ones.” (He seemed to know what I had.)
“Diamonds are better than spades,” I answered. “And nearly all my cards are black ones. Besides, I can’t
count, it wants so much thinking. Can’t you come over here and play for me”
He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed. “No,” he replied, “that is against the law of the
game. You must play for yourself. Think it out.”
He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an intonation that they dissipated the rest
of the dream, and I remember no more of it. [Page 59]
ATCHAM, Dec 7, 1883
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