Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/255

 my unborn game—another last shuffle to prove it, though I shuffle clumsily enough.

I glance disdainfully at the fatalist whom I have refuted, and prepare again to lay down the first row of cards. But the fellow comes back with, "Those last shuffles were also determined, as was this challenge—"

"Very well!" and I prepare for still another rear rangement. But here I reflect that this could be endless and not at all interesting.

I dismiss the fatalist as a quibbler and play on. Now there is no dispute, unless there be other quibblers. Fixed is the order in which the cards shall fall, eight at a time. There is pure fatalism. But in the movings after each eight are dealt, I shall consciously choose and judge, which is pure free will—or an imitation of it sufficiently colorable to satisfy any but quibblers. There, for me, is the fatalism of body, the free will of soul. Of these I learn when I play the game.

Now my first eight cards are down in a horizontal row. There are two kings among them, which is auspicious, for kings must be placed sometime at the top. There is a red queen, also auspicious, to be placed on one of the black kings. There is an ace of diamonds and its deuce. Good, again! The ace is placed above the row, beginning a row of aces to be placed there as fast as they fall, and the deuce is placed atop of it, for in that row the suits will be built up, each in its kind. In the lower rows the