To the conservative card tables of Mayfair has come a startling innovation. American residents have introduced poker as a rival of bridge in fashionable society, much to the discomfiture of stern old auctioneers. Newspaper report has it that bridge is hard put to compete with the western invader, so lately come from lumber camp and smoking car.

Among aristocratic women, the game is particularly popular, a result not out of harmony with the comment of Owen Wiset's Virginian that Queen Elizabeth would have made a good poker player. Any woman who could fool a Spanish king certainly would not lose money to a cowboy.

The feminine equivalent of bluff gives a distinctively piquant flavor to penny ante. Few strong men holding good hands can resist the appeal of a womanly raise when deuces are wild. Small wonder therefore that British auction players fear for the future of their game. Once more, London Bridge is falling down.