'Would you mind if I used a part of the table?' asked the man.
'Not at all,' said the judge.
'Thank you sir,' said the man, with a detectable brogue from the southwest of the country.
The judge resumed his study of the papers relating to the settlement of a complex civil issue he would have to adjudicate on his return to Dublin from Tralee. The visit to Kerry as circuit court judge to preside over the quarterly hearings there would, he trusted, offer no such complexities. These rural circuit courts, in his experience, offered only the simplest of issues to be decided by local juries who as often as not produced verdicts of bewildering illogicality.
He did not bother to look up when the wispy man produced a pack of none-too-clean playing cards from his pockets and proceeded to set some of them out in columns to play patience. His attention was only drawn some seconds later to a clucking sound. He looked up again.
The wispy man had his tongue between his teeth in an effort of great concentration — this was producing the ducking sound — and was staring at the exposed cards at the foot of each column. Judge Comyn observed at a glance that a red nine had not been placed upon a black ten, even though both cards were clearly visible. The wispy man, failing to see the match, began to deal three more cards. Judge Comyn choked back his irritation and returned to his papers. Nothing to do with me, he told himself.
But there is something mesmeric about a man playing patience, and never more so than when he is playing it badly. Within five minutes the judge's concentration had been completely broken in the matter of the civil lawsuit, and he was staring at the exposed cards. Finally he could bear it no longer. There was an empty column on the right, yet an exposed king on column three that ought to go into the vacant space. He coughed. The wispy one looked up in alarm.
'The king,' said the judge gently, 'it should go up into the space.'
The card player looked down, spotted the opportunity and moved the king. The card now able to be turned over proved to be a queen, and she went to the king. Before he had finished he had legitimately made seven moves. The column that began with the king now ended with a ten.
'And the red nine,' said the judge. 'It can go across now.'
The red nine and its dependent six cards moved over to the nine. Another card could be exposed; an ace, which went up above the game.
'I do believe you will get it out,' said the judge.
'Ah, not me, sir,' said the wispy man, shaking his head with its sad spaniel eyes. 'Sure I've never got one out yet in all me life.'
'Play on, play on,' said Judge Comyn with rising interest. With his help the game did indeed come out. The wispy man gazed at the resolved puzzle in wonderment.
'There you are, you see; you've done it,' said the judge.
'Ah, but not without your honour's help,' said the sad-eyed one. 'It's a fine mind ye have for the cards, sir.'
Judge Comyn wondered if the cardplayer could possibly know he was a judge, but concluded the man was simply using a common form of address in Ireland in those days towards one worthy of some respect.
Even the priest had laid down his collection of the sermons of the late, great Cardinal Newman and was looking at the cards.
'Oh,' said the judge, who played a little bridge and poker with his cronies at the Kildare Street Club, 'not really.'
Privately he was rather proud of his theory that a good legal mind, with its trained observation, practised powers of deduction and keen memory, could always play a good game of cards.
The wispy man ceased playing and began idly dealing five-card hands, which he then examined before returning the cards to the pack. Finally he put the deck down. He sighed.
'It's a long way to Tralee,' he said wistfully.
With hindsight Judge Comyn never could recall who exactly had mentioned the word poker, but he suspected it might have been himself. Anyway, he took over the pack and dealt a few hands for himself. One of them, he was pleased to notice, was a full house, jacks on tens.
With a half-smile, as if amazed at his boldness, the wispy man took up one hand and held it in front of hi
m.
'I will bet you, sir, one imaginary penny that you cannot deal yourself a better hand than this one.'
'Done,' said the judge, and dealt a second hand, which he held up in front of him. It was not a full house, but contained a pair of nines.
'Beady?' asked Judge Comyn. The wispy man nodded. They put their cards down. The wispy man had three fives.
'Ah,' said the judge, 'but I did not draw any fresh cards, as was my right. Again, my dear fellow.'
They did it again. This time the wispy man drew three fresh cards, the judge two. The judge had the better hand.