"CHESS PIE."

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 128, 27 November 1923, Page 2

"CHESS PIE."

The following message was specially contributed to "Chess Pia" {the official souvenir of the London International Congress, 1922). by the author of "If .Winter Comes" :—"All the nice Men characters in my novels play chess. It isn't always stated that they do so, but it may be taken for granted. Even George, in 'Once Aboard The Lugger,' though by way of being a harum-scarum medical student, was a chess player. This would be true enough to life. Chess doesnot sound like a medical student's pastime, but when I was myself a medical student, chess was wonderfully popular in the Students' Club of my hospital, I, personally, learnt it at school when I was in the sanatorium with measles, and it has been a joy to me eyer since, though my opportunities of playing are very few, and my game worse than bad. 1 remember well that, when learning it, it was, I think, the only game at which I lost .my temper. This was because the yduth who instructed me always took my queen. I am on the jump about my queen to thi» day, and apt to be touchy when she goes. I suppose all games are contests physical, as in sports, or of skill and wits, as in billiards and cards., Chess seems to me to stand alone as a contest of mind. Isn't that its peculiar charm ?—(Signed) A. S. M. Hutchinsoii.