# The Adventures of David Simple (1904)/Chapter 12

BOOK II
CHAPTER I
which is writ only with a view to instruct readers, that whist is a game very much in fashion
David's next scheme was to converse amongst people in high life, and try if their minds were as refined as the education and opportunities they had of improving themselves, gave him hopes of. But then, as he had never lived at that end of the town before, kept no equipage, and was besides a very modest man, he was under some difficulty how to get introduction to persons of fashion. Mr. Spatter told him, he need be in no pain on that account, for that he frequented all the assemblies, and kept the best company in town, and he would carry him wherever he went. He told him he had nothing to do but to get a fine coat, a well-powdered wig, and a whist-book, and he would soon be invited to more routs than he would be able to go to. "And pray, sir," said David, "what do you mean by a whist-book? It is a game I have often played to pass away a winter evening, but I don't find any necessity of a book to learn it."—"Why, really, sir," replied Spatter, "I cannot tell what use it is of, but I know it is a fashion to have it, and no one is qualified for the conversation in vogue without it. Though I can't but say I have known several people, especially among the ladies, who used to play tolerably well, but since they have set themselves to learn by book, are so puzzled they cannot tell how to play a card. Not but this book is, they say, excellently well writ, and contains every rule necessary to the ​understaing the game: but as a traveller, who is ignorant of the country he passes through, is the most perplexed where he finds the greatest variety of roads; so a weak head is the most distracted, and the least able to pursue any point in view, where it endeavours to get many rules, and comprehend various things at once.
"But as to the routs, I can give you no other account of them, than that it is the genteel name for the assemblies that meet at private houses to win or lose money at whist. The method pursued to gather these companies together, is, that the lady of the house where the rout is to be held, a fortnight or three weeks before the intended day, dispatches a messenger to every person designed to be there,with a few magic words properly placed on a card, which infallibly brings every one at the appointed time: but if by chance, notwithstanding the care of sending so long beforehand, two of these cards should happen to interfere, and the same person be under a necessity of being at two places at once, the best expedient to be found out, is, to play a rubber at one place, and then drive their horses to death to get to the other time enough not to disappoint their friends. For you must know, every one looks on herself as in the highest distress, who has not as many tables at her house as any of her acquaintance." — " But," says David, "I don't see how this will at all promote my scheme; for, by going amongst people who place their whole happiness in gaming, and where there is no sort of conversation, how is it possible I should come at their sentiments, or enter into their characters?"—" Indeed, sir," replied the other, "you was never more mistaken in your life, for people's minds, and the bent of their inclination, is nowhere so much discovered as at a gaming-table: for in conversation, the real thoughts are often disguised; but when the ​passions are actuated, the mask is thrown off, and nature appears as she is. I could carry you into several companies, where you should see very pretty young women, whose features are of such exact proportion, and in whose countenances is displayed such a delightful harmony, as you would think to be the strongest indication that every thought within was peace and gentleness, and that their breasts were all softness and good-nature. Yet but follow them to one of these assemblies, and in half an hour's time you shall see all their beauty vanish; those features, with which you were so charmed before, all distorted and in confusion; and that harmony of countenance, which could never be enough admired, converted into an eagerness and fierceness, which plainly prove the whole soul to be discomposed, and filled with tumult and anxiety; and all this, perhaps, only from a desire of getting jewels something finer than they could otherwise procure, and in order to surpass some lady who had just bought a new set. Besides, I can give you the character of most of the people where we shall go, and that will be an entertainment to us every night at our return home."
David thanked him for his offer; and they agreed to set out every day to different houses, in order to make observations. The first assembly they went to there were ten tables at whist, and at each of them the competitors seemed to lay as great a stress on either their victory or defeat, as if the whole happiness of their lives depended on it.
David walked from one to the other to make what observations he could; but he found they were all alike. Joy sparkled in the eyes of all the conquerors, and black despair seemed to surround all the vanquished. Those very people, who, they sat down to play, conversed with each in a strain so polite and well-bred, that ​unexperienced man would have thought the greatest pleasure they could have had would have been in serving each other, were in a moment turned into enemies, and the winning of a guinea, or perhaps five, (according to the sum played for) was the only idea that possessed the minds of a whole company of people, none of whom were in any manner of want of it.
This was a melancholy prospect for poor David; for nothing could be a stronger proof of the selfish and mercenary tempers of mankind, than to see those people whom fortune had placed in affluence, as desirous of gaining from each other, as if they really could not have had necessaries without it.
The two gentlemen stayed till they were heartily weary, and then retired to spend the rest of the evening together at a tavern, where the whole conversation turned on what they had seen at the assembly. David asked his companion, if this was the manner in which people who have it in their power to spend their time as they pleased, chose to I employ it. "Yes, sir," answered Mr. Spatter, "I assure you I have very few acquaintance at this end of the town, who seem to be born for any other purpose but to play at whist, or who have any use or more understanding than what serves to that end." He then run through the characters of the whole company, and at the finishing of every one uttered a sentence with some vehemence (which was a manner peculiar to himself) calling them either fools or knaves; but as he had a great deal of wit, he did this in so entertaining a way that David could not help laughing sometimes, though he checked himself for it; thinking the faults or follies or mankind were not the proper objects of mirth.
The next morning Mr. Spatter carried him to the toilette of one of the ladies who was of the ​whist-party the night before, where great part of the company were met. There was not one single syllable spoke of anything but cards; the whole scene of the foregoing night was played over again—who lost, or won—who played well, or ill—in short, there was nothing talked of that can be either remembered or repeated.
David led this life for about a week, in the morning at toilettes, the evening at cards, and at night with Mr. Spatter, who constantly pulled to pieces, ridiculed and abused all the people they had been with the day before. He told him stories of ladies who were married to men infinitely their superiors, who raised their fortunes, indulged them in everything they could wish, were wholly taken up in contemplating their charms, and yet were neglected and slighted by them, who would abandon everything that can be thought most valuable rather than lose one evening playing at their darling whist.
David was soon tired of this manner of life, in which he saw no hopes of finding what he was in search of, and in which there was no variety, for the desire of winning seemed to he the only thing thought on by everybody; he observed to his companion here and there a person who played quite carelessly, and did not appear to trouble themselves whether they won or lost. These, Mr. Spatter told him, were a sort of people who had no pleasure in life, but in being with people of quality, and in telling their acquaintance they were such a night at the duchess of———, another time at the countess of———; and although they do not love play themselves, yet as they find it the easiest passport into that company where their whole happiness is centered, they think it a small price to pay for what they esteem so valuable. "But," added he, "the worst of it is, some of them cannot afford to play, but sacrifice that fortune to nothing but the vanity ​of appearing with the great, which would procure them everything essentially necessary in their own sphere of life."
Thus was David again disappointed; for he had entertained some hopes, that those few people in whom he had seen a calmness at play, were disinterested, and had that contempt for money, which he esteemed necessary to make a good character; but when he found it arose from so mean a vanity, he could not help thinking them the most despicable of all mortals. "I do assure you," says Spatter, "I have known people spend their whole time in the most servile compliances, for no other reason, but to have the words lordship, and ladyship, often in their mouths, and who measure their happiness and misery every night, by the number of people of quality they had spoke to that day. But as your curiosity seems to be fully satisfied with what you have seen of the whist-players, I will carry you to-morrow into a set of company, who have an utter contempt for cards, and whose whole pleasure is in conversation."
David thanked him, approving of what he said, and they separated that night with a resolution of changing the scene next day. And I believe my reader, as well as myself, is heartily glad to quit a subject so extremely barren of matter, as that of gaming; and into which I would not have entered all, but that it would have been excluding my hero from one of the chief scenes to be viewed at present in this great town.