The Nit and The Fish

[SheridanCat]

I happened to observe the following game while attending the fortnightly Ball at Bath. The game is whist and we find our hero paired with Miss Bolo up against the team of Mrs. Colonel Wugsby and the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph. While the game may not be common in card rooms in the current day, the lesson, as it were, is there to be lernt. The stakes are unknown, but we can surmise they are of a seemly and polite level given the company.

"Poor Mr. Pickwick! He had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before. They were so desparately sharp, that they quite frightened him. If he played a wrong card, Miss Bolo looked a small armoury of daggers; if he stopped to consider which was the right one, Lady Snuphanuph would throw herself back in her chair and smile with a mingled glance of impatience and pity to Mrs. Colonel Wugsby; at which Mrs. Colonel Wugsby would shrug up her shoulders, and cough, as much as to say she wondered whether he ever would begin. Then, at the end of every hand, Miss Bolo would inquire with a dismal countenance and reproachful sigh, why Mr, Pickwick had not returned that diamond, or led the club, or roughed the spade, or finessed the heart, or led through the honour, or brought out the ace, or played up to the king, or some such thing; and in reply to all these grave charges, Mr. Pickwick would be wholly unable to plead any justification whatever, having by this time forgotten all about the game. People came and looked on, too, which made Mr. Pickwick nervous.... All these things combined with the noises and interruptions of constant comings in and goings out, made Mr. Pickwick play rather badly; the cards were against him, also; and when they left off at ten minutes past eleven, Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears, and a sedan-chair"

Yr hmbl & obt svt

T