Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-12-09
WHIST PLAYED BY SPIRIT HANDS.


Two medical Students Remarkable Ex
perience in a Quiet Game.
This story I advance with reserve
It was told me by young medico, and
we all know that medical students are
OF a peculiarly reserved, reticent and
sober race. averse to exaggeration and
remarkable for the veracity of theil
anecdotes. He who related the follow
ing astonishing experience told me that
It took place at St. Bartholomew OF
perhaps il was at Guys or St. Thomas
Tie essential thing is that it took place
at a hospital
1t was evening and not late. One OF
the resident house physicians, young
man with friend, also a young medi-
cal man. whose evidence can be pro-
cured 10 corroborate the story, was
playing double dummy. They had
been playing some time, nothing un-
usual happening. They were seated at
a suusre table. One Of them. at the
beginning Of the new game, had to
deal with his own dummy, as is the
rules at double dummy When he had
finished most wonderful thing hap
pened. The cards of the two dummies
were taken up by invisible hands,
which arranged them and held them in
the usual fanlike form. 1t was as if
the cards were in the air, The two
men looked at each other and at this
phenomenon with stupefaction.
II they had not been men of science
they would have fed shrieking. Then
one Of the dummies hands were sharply
raped on the table. THAT means
play" whispered one of them, and with
gasp, he led. The play of the invis-
ible dummies was all right. The lead
ing partner took the trick and returned,
changing the suit to show the hand she
held. | say she. because by this time
there were visible the hands and arms
that held the cards, but nothing more
One of the players was woman with
bare arms showing from a sleeve of
white lace; her fingers had rings upon
them. The other was a mans with
an ordinary coat sleeve and white cuff.
The men put down their pipes. They
played the game in solemn silence.
Presently it became apparent that the
lady played mastery game. She held
good cards; so did her partner. They
scored in the first rub-double, treble
and the rub, and in the second-treble,
single and the rub.
"Never," ;" my narrator told me, 'did
| play with finer player. She seemed
to know by instinct where every card
in the pack was AT the end of the
double rubber the arms disappeared.
They went away as they came. have
never seen them since, though l often
invited them to come by dealing the
cards on the table. | have often won.
dered who the lady was; young, as /
gathered from the appearance of her
arms; gentlewoman, as was shown by
the taper fingers, and the rings, and the
lace, and certain way Of carrying her
arms. Frolicsome, as was proved by
her sitting down to play with only her
arms visible; unmarried, from the alb
sence of a wedding ring.
''Who could she be9 Why was she
brought to the hospital2 What is her
story2 Why did she die SO young9
Above all, how could she, at her early
age, have acquired such a knowledge
IF whist3 Itsis very rare to find a girl
playing whist even decently. Perhaps,
lfter-after leaving the hospital" he
added, with some delicacy of expert
'nce, ''she may have found opportuni-
les for practice.
''As for her companion, he was com.
,aratively uninteresting. He had
halked stones on his fingers, and he
Has only mediocre player. He neg
ected his partners lead, he bottled her
rumps, and once he threw away the
ing of trumps, not even trying to save
by an obvious finesse. But the
ady-the lady-she, indeed, was di-
inc. Walter Besant in Philadelphia
Zines.
Waitars without Nuou..