II

FOURS (WITH ONE PIQUET PACK)

THIS game is sometimes played with a Whist pack, but it then often becomes extremely tedious. A Piquet pack is a Whist pack from which all the 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, and 6's have been extracted and set aside. It therefore consists of 32 cards.

From such a pack deal out four cards in a row, face upwards — say, the 10 of diamonds, knave of hearts, 7 of clubs, 8 of clubs. As there are no two or more cards here of the same denomination, deal out four more cards on the top of the first four — say, the 10 of spades, king of clubs, 10 of clubs, king of spades. Move the 10 of clubs on to the 10 of spades, and the king of spades on to the king of clubs. Deal four more cards, one in each place — say, the knave of spades, knave of clubs, queen of diamonds, ace of spades; move the knave of clubs on to the knave of spades. Deal four more cards — say, 9 of spades, king of hearts, 8 of hearts, 8 of spades; move the 8 of spades on to the 8 of hearts.

Deal the ace of diamonds, king of diamonds, 7 of diamonds, queen of spades; here no card is moved, as all four are of different value.

Deal knave of diamonds, ace of clubs, 7 of spades, 7 of hearts; move the 7 of hearts on to the 7 of spades.

Deal 8 of diamonds, 10 of hearts, 9 of diamonds, queen of hearts. No card can be moved. Finally, deal 9 of hearts, ace of hearts, 9 of clubs, queen of clubs; move 9 of clubs on to 9 of hearts; this exposes the 9 of diamonds, which must be moved on to the 9 of clubs.

The object is to get together four cards of the same value (irrespective always of suit). As soon as this happens, the four cards are put out, and dealing is continued with those that remain. If you can thus get rid of all the cards, the game has been won. If not, you have failed.

You are allowed as many deals as you please, but you must never disarrange the order of the cards after you have once started. At the end of the first deal, as given above, lift packet 2 on to packet i (both face upward, and No. 1 being the packet on the extreme left); then lift packet 3 on to both these, and finally packet 4 on to the other three. Be careful to do all the lifting, throughout the game, in the same direction — from right to left.

Now turn the cards face downwards, and begin to deal again from the top. The first row of four cards will be 10 of diamonds, 10 of spades, 10 of clubs, knave of spades. Move 10 of spades on to 10 of diamonds, and 10 of clubs on to 10 of spades. The next four cards will be knave of clubs, 9 of spades, ace of diamonds, knave of diamonds the two middle cards are dealt into the vacant spaces. Move knave of diamonds on to knave of clubs. This exposes knave of spades, which is moved on to the knave of diamonds. Proceed thus, at the end of the second deal you will find that the four 7's and the four queens go out:

FOURS (in progress).

Three aces are on top of packet 1, three kings on top of packet 2, and three 8's on top of packet 3. The place of packet 4 is vacant.

Gather up the packets as before, and deal for the third time, when it will be found that all the cards go out — first the knaves, then the 9's, kings, aces, 10's, and 8's, in succession.

It is not a difficult game, but it does not always succeed, as might be imagined. Suppose your last twelve cards, in order from the top, had been three aces, two 10's, four 8's, two 10's, and the fourth ace, you can satisfy yourself by trial that no amount of dealing would ever have cleared these cards off. They would repeat again and again in similar order, like a recurring decimal.