Daily Yellowstone journal., 1891-11-10
WHIST PLAYED BY SPIRIT HANDS
Two Medical Students Remarkable EK-
perienoe In a OuIet Game.


perienoe In a Quiet Game.
This story l advance with reserve.
II was told me by a 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 their
anecdotes. He who related the follow
ing astonishing experience told me that
it took place at st. Bartholomew, or
perhaps it was at Guys or st. Thomas.
The essential thing is that it took place
at a hospital
1t was evening and not late. One of
the resident house physicians, a young
man with a friend, also a young med
cal man, whose evidence can be pro
cured to corroborate the story, was
playing a double dummy. They had
been playing some time, nothing un-
usual happening. They were seated at
a square 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 a 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 fanike form. IL was as if
the cards we're in the air. The two
men looked at each other and at this
phenomenon with stupefaction.
If they had not been men Of science
they would have He'd shrieking. Then
one Of the dummies hands were sharply
raped on the table. That means
play" whispered one of them. and with
a 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. I say she, because by this time
there We're visible the hands and arms
that held the cards, but nothing more
One of the players was a 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 a 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 a 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 / 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; a gentlewoman, as was shown by
the taper fingers, and the rings, and the
lace, and a certain way Of carrying her
arms. FrolcsOme. 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 be- Why was she
brought to the hospitall What is her
storyi Why did she die so youngl
Above all, how could she. at her early
age, have acquired such a knowledge
of whistl 1t is very rare TO find a girl
playing whist even decently. Perhaps,
after-after leaving the hospital" he
added, with some delicacy Of expert
ence. she may have found o%pportuni-
ties for practice.
"As for her companion, he was com.
paratively uninteresting. He had
chalked stones on his fingers, and he
was only a mediocre player. He neg
lected his partners lead, he bottled her
trumps. and once he threw away the
king Of trumps, not wen trying to save
il by an obvious finesse. But the
lady-the lady-she, indeed, was di-
vine. Walter Besant in Philadelphia
Times.