240 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



So far the game had proceeded very satis- 

 factorily for us, and, thanks to my deficiency 

 in Babes, my partner contrived to establish a 

 double-ruff, after she had got rid of her single 

 Herd, and we won four tricks without much 

 difficulty. 



In the second game we were not quite so suc- 

 cessful. Colonel Blood-Busterfield made Dam- 

 sels ; I led a very unprepossessing group of 

 Oxford undergraduates, taken in 1856, before 

 Lord Porpentine had been sent down from 

 Balliol; Dummy's hand produced a still less 

 agreeable photograph of the house-party at 

 Mumsey on the occasion of our host's silver 

 wedding; my partner put on a card represent- 

 ing the battalion of Territorials of which Lord 

 Porpentine was Honorary Colonel ; and every- 

 thing promised well for us until Colonel Blood- 

 Busterfield cunningly played a large flashlight 

 photograph of the members of the Gourmand 

 Club, taken at the banquet held last year to 

 celebrate the tercentenary of the discovery of 

 caviare. 



The next ten minutes were spent arguing 

 over this trick. I justly pointed out that the 

 Territorial battalion, besides being almost incon- 

 ceivably hideous, was nearly, if not quite, as 

 numerous as the club group. The Colonel and 

 Lord Porpentine, however, insisted that the 



