n it, and you are at fault in making the attempt.

Don't be offended if your partner takes you out of a bid, and don't take
him out for the glory of playing the hand. He is quite as anxious to win
the rubber as you are. It is unbelievable how many people regard their
partner as a third opponent.

=MANNERISMS AT THE CARD TABLE=

Mannerisms must be avoided like the plague. If there is one thing worse
than the horrible "post-mortem," it is the incessant repetition of some
jarring habit by one particular player. The most usual and most offensive
is that of snapping down a card as played, or bending a "trick" one has
taken into a letter "U," or picking it up and trotting it up and down on
the table.

Other pet offenses are drumming on the table with one's fingers, making
various clicking, whistling, or humming sounds, massaging one's face,
scratching one's chin with the cards, or waving the card one is going to
play aloft in the air in Smart Alec fashion as though shouting, "I know
what you are going to lead! And my card is ready!" All mannerisms that
attract attention are in the long run equally unpleasant--even unendurable
to one's companions.

Many people whose game is otherwise admirable are rarely asked to play
because they have allowed some such silly and annoying habit to take its
hold upon them.

=THE GOOD LOSER=

The good loser makes it an invariable rule never to play for stakes that
it will be inconvenient to lose. The neglect of this rule has been
responsible for more "bad losers" than anything else, and needless to say
a bad loser is about as welcome at a card table as rain at a picnic.

Of course there _are_ people who can take losses beyond their means with
perfect cheerfulness and composure. Some few are so imbued with the
gambler's instinct that a heavy turn of luck, in either direction, is the
salt of life. But the average person is equally embarrassed in winning or
losing a stake "that matters" and the only answer is to play for one that
doesn't.

=GOLF=

Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average
person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of
disposition so essential. No one easily "ruffled" can keep a clear eye on
the ball, and exasperation at "lost balls" seemingly bewitches successive
ones into disappearing with the completeness and finality of puffs of
smoke. In a race or other test of endurance a flare of anger might even
help, but