Bridge

“The man’s a fruitcake,” Cy the Cynic grumbled. “If you asked him to spell ‘Mississippi,’ he would ask whether you meant the state or the river.”

Cy was talking about Millard Pringle, a quiet little man who tends to lose his way in the maze of thought processes at the table.

“Look what he did to me in the penny game,” Cy fumed.

The Cynic had played at four hearts, and Millard led the king of clubs as West. East did well to overtake and shift to the ten of spades. When Cy played low (not best), Millard pondered and “covered an honor”: He put on the jack.

“I took the queen,” Cy said, “led a trump to my ace and returned a diamond: five, ace, eight. When I led a second trump to my king, Millard discarded the queen of diamonds. Now I couldn’t set up the diamonds without letting East get in, and a second spade from him beat me.

“Millard apologized to East. He thought his queen of diamonds was the queen of trumps.”

If Millard keeps his queen of diamonds, Cy can make game.