“They’s no use worryin’ about our end of it yet,” says the Wife. “We’ll be new members and they won’t expect us to give no party till everybody else has had their turn.”
“I only got one objection left,” I says. “How am I goin’ to get by at a bridge party when I haven’t no idear how many cards to deal?”
“I guess you can learn if I learnt,” she says. “You’re always talkin’ about what a swell card player you are. And besides, you’ve played w’ist, and they ain’t hardly any difference.”
“And the next party is next Tuesday night?” I says.
“Yes,” says the Missus, “at Mrs. Garrett’s, the best player in the club, and one o’ the smartest women in Chicago, Mrs. Messenger says. She lives in the same buildin’ with the Messengers. And they’s dinner first and then we play bridge all evenin’.”
“And maybe,” I says, “before the evenin’s over, I’ll find out what’s trumps.”
“You’ll know all about the game before that,” she says. “Right after supper we’ll get out the cards and I’ll show you.”
So right after supper she got out the cards and begun to show me. But about all as I learnt was one thing, and that was that if I died without no insurance, the Missus would stand a better show o’ supportin’ herself by umpirin’ baseball in the National League than by teachin’ in a bridge-w’ist university. She knew everything except how much the different suits counted, and how many points was in a game, and what honors meant, and who done the first biddin’, and how much to bid on what.
After about an hour of it I says:
“I can see you got this thing mastered, but you’re like a whole lot of other people that knows somethin’ perfect themselves but can’t learn it to nobody else.”
“No,” she says; “I got to admit that I don’t know as much as I thought I did. I didn’t have no trouble when I was playin’ with Mrs. Hatch and Mrs. Pearson and Mrs. Kramer; but it seems like I forgot all they learnt me.”
“It’s a crime,” I says, “that we should have to pass up this chance to get in right just because we can’t play a fool game o’ cards. Why don’t you call up Mrs. Messenger and suggest that the San Susies switches to pedro or five hundred or rummy, or somethin’ that you don’t need to take no college course in?”
“You’re full o’ brilliant idears,” says the Missus. “They’s only just the one game that Society plays, and that’s bridge. Them other games is jokes.”
“I’ve noticed you always treated ’em that way,” I says. “But they wasn’t so funny to me when it come time to settle.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” says the Missus: “We’ll call up Mr. and Mrs. Hatch and tell ’em to come over here tomorrow night and give us a lesson.”
“That’d be sweet,” I says, “askin’ them to learn us a game so as we could join a club that’s right here in their neighborhood, but they ain’t even been ast to join it!”
“Why, you rummy!” she says. “We don’t have to tell ’em why we want to learn. We’ll just say that my two attempts over to their house has got me interested and I and you want to master the game so as we can spend many pleasant evenin’s with them; because Mrs. Hatch has told me a hundred times that her and her husband would rather play bridge than eat.”
So she called up Mrs. Hatch and sprung it on her; but it seemed like the Hatches had an engagement for Saturday night, but would be tickled to death to come over Monday evenin’ and give us a workout. After that was fixed we both felt kind of ashamed of ourselves, deceivin’ people that was supposed to be our best friends.
“But, anyway,” the Missus says, “the Hatches wouldn’t never fit in with that crowd. Jim always looks like he’d dressed on the elevated and Mrs. Hatch can’t talk about nothin’ only shiropody.”
On the Saturday I tried to slip one over by buyin’ a book called Auction Bridge, and I read it all the way home from town and then left it on the car. It was a great book for a man that had learnt the rudderments and wanted to find out how to play the game right. But for me to try and get somethin’ out of it was just like as though some kid’d learn the baseball guide by heart in kindeygarden and then ask Hugh Jennin’s for the job in center-field. I did find out one thing from it though: it says that in every deal one o’ the players was a dummy and just laid his cards down and left somebody else play ’em. So when I got home I says:
“We won’t need no help from Jim Hatch and his wife. We can just be dummies all the evenin’ and they won’t nobody know if we’re ignorant or not.”
“That’s impossible, to be dummy all the time,” says the Missus.
“Not for me,” I says. “I know it’ll be tough for you, but you can chew a lot o’ gum and you won’t mind it so much.”
“You don’t understand,” she says. “The dummy is the pardner o’ the party that gets the bid. Suppose one o’ the people that was playin’ against you got the bid; then the other one’d be dummy and you’d have to play your hand.”
“But I don’t need to leave ’em have the bid,” I says. “I can take it away from ’em.”
“And if you take it away from ’em,” she says, “then you got the bid yourself, and your pardner’s dummy, not you.”
Well, the Hatches breezed in Monday night and Mrs. Hatch remarked how tickled she was
