Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/115

 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