“It beats the hell out of card games”

“It beats the hell out of card games” is a comic refrain that passes from Jubal to Mike and acquires a more serious meaning in the transfer. First used to tease Jubal’s water brother about kissing girls, it becomes Mike’s own explanation of kissing as “a goodness” and a form of growing closer.

First Use: Jubal’s Teasing Defense

Jubal introduces the comparison while consoling his water brother, who might be disappointed that their growing closer is reserved for young, pretty girls such as Jill. When asked whether he speaks rightly, Jubal answers that kissing girls is better than card games. The line deliberately punctures solemnity: affection is presented as both genuine intimacy and an enjoyable alternative to a familiar pastime.

Jubal then turns the joke into a proposed experiment. Wondering whether the “first-time phenomenon” might repeat, he asks Dorcas to help. The remark thus belongs to a scene of teasing and curiosity, not a general doctrine; its humor rests on the contrast between Jubal’s casual confidence and the unusual seriousness with which the subject is being explored.

Mike Makes the Phrase His Own

Later, Mike is asked how he liked kissing girls. He answers with little hesitation that it is “a goodness,” explaining that it is a growing-closer and repeating Jubal’s comparison with card games. The borrowed phrase now carries Mike’s sincere account of an experience: the joke has become a compact way to express pleasure and relational closeness in terms he can understand.

The audience applauds, and the noise frightens Mike. He notices, however, that Jill and Dorcas are not frightened and are trying to restrain their own incomprehensible expression of pleasure. He calms himself and waits gravely for what may follow. The scene places his earnest repetition amid other people’s amusement, making the line funny without making Mike’s response itself insincere.

Recurrence and Meaning

The two uses preserve the phrase’s comic contrast while changing its emphasis. Jubal uses it to make kissing sound cheerfully preferable to card games; Mike repeats it as a plain description of kissing’s goodness and its power to bring people closer. His words show how he takes up another person’s language and fits it to his own experience, turning a teasing aside into a small vocabulary of intimacy.

The expression’s importance lies in that shift rather than in a formal maxim. It connects laughter to Mike’s attempt to make sense of human closeness, while the surrounding applause reveals a gap between his grave manner and the audience’s delighted response. The phrase remains a joke, but its repetition also marks Mike’s growing ability to name pleasure and connection.