What kind of girl doesn't like diamonds?

Bidding, however, one cannot escape the misfortune that diamonds are the second-lowest suit. And while what man would turn away a second-hand suit, it would not be that which one would bid.

This is the story of one such a man, and one such a second-hand suit. I am that man. I am a travelling man, in that, like a businessman, I occasionally travel. Otherwise, I am unlike a businessman. I have, like the businessman, hands and cock. But businessmen like to do business; not me. I'm into pleasure.

So I travel for pleasure. The pleasure lands to which I travel include a certain Eastern-European country, one in which one speaks a language spoken by a people carrying the name of Poles. It is this language with which I pleasure my palate, and their palates the people which I witness pleasuring around me.

Do you ever look at a map of the world, and wish you were everywhere at once? I would rush. Would that I could rush round every last border.

But I spend my time here. Did you know (I did not), that--perhaps--one word which one uses to name this people is that word which these people use to name the field? That is, the word "pole", reduced to its roots in its own language, means "field". Could it be that the people beheld a field, and--behold--they gave themselves the name of that field? Could this fact remain to this day in the name of their country? Could we, in agreeing to speak of the Poles as Poles, be accepting to call them by they chosen name of people of the field? Indeed, Poland is a big field.

Four of these Poles, I among them, at times sit at table; table, in other words, but not to partake but to play. I am one of these four people, and we play. The other three love to play. Who doesn't?

I don't. I play because they are my partners, and, in order to complete the circle, I must participate. I don't like to play. I much prefer to travel.

I speak of speaking. Because when one travels, one sees speeches. So I speak of speeches seen on my travels at table. To the table, I bring my speeches.

From the country beside Poland, Germany, so known in England because in France the word means near, the people named the Franks populated France. Such speech I bring to table. And I tell this story. I recount this fact.

The following fact I recount.

From France, the cards with which we play populated Poland. Poland had no cards, I recount, before those that came from France. And as we bid, we bid our suits: the first, and second, and second-last and last. The first bid, we bid in our Polish language, we bid in the order of the suits, this being the highest, and we bid "Pik".

And I say, from Germany, the Franks populated France, and the French populated the cards of the Polish with the highest suit: the "Pique". And it means a spear, and my partner Poles accept this. And we bid the second-highest suit, "Kier".

And I say, from Germany, the Franks populated France, and the French populated the cards of the Polish with the second-highest suit: the "Coeur". And it means a heart, and my partner Poles accept this. And we bid the lowest suit: we bid "Trefl".

And I say, from Germany, the Franks populated France, and the French populated the cards of the Polish with the lowest suit: the "Trefle". And it means a clover, and my partner Poles accept this. And we had missed a suit. And we bid.

As I travelled out from Poland, I was convinced that the second-lowest suit was a diamond. This romance remained, as I crossed lands, and settled in a land in which the suit was that second-hand suit that is a girl's best friend. But as I travelled out of lands, from where "Ontario" means "beautiful lake" to the land populated by the German Franks, I found the word that had populated the faustian festivity of the folk of the field.

The Franks brought, through what is known as Frankreich in, and from, the germain land, to the folk of the field, the word for the second hand.

"Karo", we the Poles bid.

A "carreau" is not a diamond; it is a square.

( | ) 18:54 m.2000