Barry is complaining to his brother about their French cousins.
‘We don't have a choice, Harry, we just have to teach them to play decent bridge. After all, their soccer play is non-existent. They are rugby-freaks; they keep on picking up the ball with their hands and throwing it over the goal. And all their whining about the ball being too round. We're not getting anywhere.'
Barry and Harry have decided for an extra twin-meeting. The first bridge evening with their cousins Gaston and Philémon has disappointed Barry somewhat — to put it mildly. To Harry, who tends to listen to Granddad a bit better than his brother, the French boys' achievements did not come as a surprise.
'Come on, Barry, those boys had hardly left the plane, when you dragged them towards the bridge table. What then did you expect?'
'Drag me out of a plane in the midst of the African jungle, at 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, put me at a bridge table in the blistering sun and still I easily and hugely outclass those two palook...', Barry begins indignantly.
'And furthermore', Harry interrupts his brother firmly (after having decided against dwelling on Barry's two strange concepts: that of a plane under the trees in the dense jungle and that of the sun blistering, where it will be hardly visible under the trees), 'those boys have only had a few lessons from aunt Mary. Viewed in that light, I think that they didn't play that badly. Take for instance that last deal from yesterday night:

S/All		♠	A J 3 2
		♥	K 5 2
		♦	A 5 4
		♣	K J 2
♠	10 9 8 7			♠	Q 4
♥	9 8 7 6			♥	Q J 10
♦	Q J 10			♦	9 8 7 6 3
♣	4 3			♣	7 6 5
		♠	K 6 5
		♥	A 4 3
		♦	K 2
		♣	A Q 10 9 8

'Nice bidding by Gaston and Philémon, don't you think? They both remembered that 4NT isn't Blackwood, but a quantitative raise, not forcing, but invitational to 6NT', says Harry.
'Elementary, my dear Harry, absolutely elementary', Barry replies, puffing on an imaginary pipe.
Harry smiles. His brother is never easily persuaded.

After having received the lead of the ♦Q, Gaston had been staring at dummy for some time and in the end he had won in hand. He played the ♠K and a small spade to dummy's ♠J. Barry won with the ♠Q and when later the spade suit turned out to be 4-3, Gaston couldn't take more than eleven tricks. Down one.
'Zat was bad luck, brother', Philémon said.
'Bad luck? Nothing of the sort', Barry mumbled.
Seeing Barry was about to speak his mind out loudly, Harry cut in.
'You didn't play badly at all, Gaston. If either the spade suit had been 3-3 or the ♠Q had been with me, you would have made 6NT. You did well too, be finessing me for the ♠Q, since that was the only way. You couldn't finesse Barry for it, since you don't have the ♠10.'
'Zanks, 'arry, I thought myself iet vent rather well too.'
'Still you missed out on a small extra chance, cousin. Since you needed only three spade tricks, you could have begun better by playing the ♠A and the ♠K. That way you profit if Barry happens to have the doubleton ♠Q, like here. If not, you play a third round of spades from South, enabling you to make a third spade trick if the ♠Q was right all the time, with me.'
Gaston gazed for some time at the deal, but in the end he said: 'Mais oui, I see.'
'Still there is hope', Barry mumbled.