Z now tells them he thought of a baby, and calls upon them each severally to justify his simile. A, “It is like a lump of chalk because it is white.” (Allowed.) B," It is like Alexander because it cries for what it can't get." (Allowed.) C, "It is like the Great Eastern because it costs a great deal of money before it makes any returns." (Disputed as rather too fanciful, but finally allowed.) D, "It is like a gooseberry because it is soft and red." (Not allowed. It had previously been likened to chalk as being white; red, therefore, cannot stand, and softness is not a sufficiently characteristic. Forfeit.) E, "It is like a fishing-rod because it has many joints." (Allowed by general acclaim.) F, "It is like a carpet bag because it has most elastic capacities of stowage." (Allowed after some discussion.) Of course, it is easy enough in most cases to find some sort of justification of almost any simile if time be allowed, though even then one sometimes comes across one that would puzzle the most ingenious; but in the actual game the explanation must be found on the spur of the moment, and herein consists half the fun. This game, like all others of its kind, is entertaining exactly in proportion to the wit and capacities of the players. Even the most witty and most learned may join in it without derogating from their dignity, and with a certainty of deriving from it a fund of endless and highly intellectual amusement. This is a very good mental exercise for all, and is capital fun even for adults; indeed, the better educated and the more clever the players are the more fun is there to be got out of the game, as it gives ample occasion for the exercise of wit of the highest quality. One player goes out of the room, and the rest, being seated in a circle, fix upon a proverb, which should not be a very long one. The first player being now recalled, he begins at player number one in the circle and asks any question he likes: the answer must contain the first word of the proverb. He then tries the next, whose answer must contain the second word, and so on. He is allowed to go completely round the circle if it be a large one, or twice if it be a small one, and then must either guess the proverb or go out again and try a new one. If he guess rightly, he has to declare the answer that gave him the clue, and the player who gave it has to go in his stead. In answering the questions much ingenuity may be exercised, and much amusement created in concealing the keywords of a proverb. For instance, in “Birds of a feather flock together" there are three dangerous words-birds, feather, and flock-all difficult to get into an ordinary sentence, and it requires much dexterity to keep them from being too prominent Let us take this proverb as an example. A goes out, and "Birds of a feather flock together" is agreed upon. A asks of B, "Have you been out to-day?" B, "No;" but I sat at the window for a long time after sunset listening to the birds and watching the rabbits on the lawn; you can't think what a lot there were." A is puzzled, he has so many words to pick from, and the word, which when expected seems so prominent, falls unnoticed upon his ear. He asks C, "And what have you been doing with yourself this evening?" C, “Oh, I have been sitting with B. looking out of window too.' Next comes D, who can have but little trouble in bringing in his word a, only let his answer be not too short. Then E has to bring in the word feather. A asks him, "What did you have for dinner to-day?" F, "Oh, roast beef, turkey, and plum pudding; but the turkey was so badly plucked, it tasted of singed feathers, and we couldn't eat it." This, repeated rapidly, may deceive the questioner, who goes on to E: "I saw you with a fishing-rod to-day; what did you catch?" F --who is by no means required to adhere to absolute facts, and may draw upon his imagination to any extent-replies, 'Well, to tell you the truth, I did not catch any; for there was a flock of sheep having their wool washed ready for shearing." F brings in the wool to lead A off to the proverb "Great cry and little wool," as almost his only chance of concealing the real word flock. A then demands of G, "Do you like walking?" G, “I do if I have a companion. When Charlie and I go out together we always have lots of fun; but Harry is such a duffer, it's awfully slow walking with him." If A is at all quick, he ought to have heard quite sufficient to know the proverb; he may, however, be puzzled by the complicated sentences; but after the second round at least, when the catch-words have been repeated, he must be slow indeed if he does not discover it. One of the party should be appointed umpire, to decide whether any answer is a fair one, and no one else should be allowed to interfere in any way; nothing is so likely to give a clue to the questioner as a dispute whether a word has been fairly introduced or not. In cases of doubt the umpire may call for a fresh question and answer There is no reason why the umpire, who should be one of the oldest players for authority's sake, should not join in the game. He is appointed almost solely to prevent confusion, and his being a player or non-player can have no influence on his decisions. The answers should be made with decision, and as rapidly as is consistent with distinctness—a quality upon which the umpire should insist; and the player should especially avoid giving short answers when he has a simple word, such as "of," "the," etc., and thus give the questioner the clue to the answer in which lie the catch-words, and thus aid him materially in his task. Of course, great pains must be taken not to lay any stress upon the word that has to be introduced, and not to make the answers unfairly long. SIMULTANEOUS PROVERBS-A very good modification of the above. No questions are asked but the players, one for each word of the proverb, stand or sit in a semicircle, and the player who has to discover the proverb 'stands in front of them. One of them, who is chosen leader, now gives the time, "One, two, three;" at the word "three" they all call out simultaneously each his own word. This they may be required to repeat once or twice, according to previous arrangement, and then the guess must be made under the same conditions as above. A long proverb should be chosen for this, if there be enough players; the greater the number of voices, of course, the more difficult it is to discover the proverb. This is a capital game, and, if well managed, will defy all detection. To do it well, however, requires some practice. Two persons assume respectively the roles of Professor of Mesmerism and Clairvoyant. The professor must have a ready wit and a good store of language, a plentiful vocabulary at his finger ends; whilst the clairvoyant must be quick of observation and retentive of memory. A semicircle is formed by the spectators, and the clairvoyant is seated blindfold with his back to them; and the professor, after going through the usual ceremony of mesmerizing him, leaves him and crosses to the spectators, asking them for any objects they may have about them for the clairvoyant to name and describe. If they are both well up to their work, the clairvoyant will appear to those who are not initiated into the secret to be able to see without his eyes, to their intense astonishment and admiration. The author once thus played clairvoyant to a friend's professor at a large charade party, and deluded the whole company into a belief in the reality of the exhibition. Robert Houdin, the great French conjurer, and his little boy made this clairvoyance one of the leading features of his entertainment, and brought the art to a wonderful pitch of perfection. It would be impossible in the contracted space of one of these short notices to give full instructions how to produce this clever illusion ; a there outline of the method of procedare is all that can be attempted. This, however, will be amply sufficient for a boy of any intelligence to grasp the idea of the leading principles: the mere details he will soon learn to work out for himself. If he should desire any further particulars, he will find much interesting information in the "Memoirs" of Robert Houdin, which may now be procured at almost any library. The method of procedure is as follows: The clairvoyant makes it his business to observe narrowly-unostentatiously, of course-and to catalogue in his mind the persons present, any little peculiarities in their dress, ornaments, etc., the gen eral arrangement of the room, and any little knickknackeries lying about. Practice only will enable him to do this to any considerable extent; but if he have any talent for such mental exercise, and without it he will never make a clever clairvoyant, practice will soon enable him to observe almost at a glance and retain in his memory almost all the leading features of all around him, animate and inanimate. Robert Houdin trained his son and himself by walking rapidly past various shops in the streets of Paris, and then writing down on paper, after passing each shop, all the articles they could remember seeing in their transitory glimpse through the window at first half a dozen or so was all they could manage, but they rapidly rose by practice to twenty or thirty, until the young Houdin, who quite outstripped his father, would tell almost the whole contents of a large window. Of course, such a wonderful pitch of perfection is scarcely attainable by an ordinary boy, and would not be worth his while if it were; nor, indeed, is it, or anything like it, necessary; but the instance may serve as an indication of the right method of procedure, to be worked out by each boy according to his individual bent and opportunities. It should be understood that all this preparation and prac tice is not absolutely necessary before beginning to exhibit the trick. A very few rehearsals will suffice for a very respectable performance; only if anything like perfection be aimed at, some extra trouble must be taken to attain it. Of course, every exhibition will do its work of improvement. Meanwhile professor and patient must practice the code of signals by which the former conveys to the latter any necessary information about the objects to be described. These signs may be words or other sounds; but great care must be taken with the latter, as they are more open to detection. The initial letter of the first, second, or last word in each sentence the professor addresses to the clairvoyant is the same as that of the object; and as the number of objects likely to be offered for description is limited, a little practice will insure its instant recognition from the clue thus given. Some signal should be preconcerted by which the clairvoyant may be warned that the object presented is at all out of the common. If there be any difficulty in making out the object, the professor may, by a little ingenuity and assurance, spell out in successive sentences the name of the object in his hand. To cover this manoeuvre, he should pretend that the mesmeric influence is failing, and make "passes " at the patient, being careful, of course, not to go near him, and the clairvoyant must pretend to brighten up under their influence, In the instance above referred to in the author's own experience, one of the company presented for description something very much out of the common way, a nutmeg-grater or something similar, and the professor, with the greatest readiness and the coolest assurance, deliberately spelt its name through almost to the last letter without detection. The above, it is hoped, will be found sufficient to set the young aspirant to mesmeric fame on the right track; but an example of the actual working may, perhaps, prove more serviceable than much description. Suppose, for instance, the object be a coin-a shilling, say of George the Third, date 1800. The professor, who, by the way, should speak with as much rapidity as is compatible with distinctness, says sharply. Can you tell me what I have in my hand? A coin. Modern or ancient? Modern. English or foreign? English. Give the reign. George the Third. But what value? Shilling. How dated? 1800. Thank you, sir! Your shilling, I believe? Right, is it not? The first question, it will be seen, begins with e; this, without further explanation, means coin. The next two explain themselves. The fourth begins with G for George, the only possible modern English reign; and the next word beginning with gives the clue to third. B at the beginning of the next stands for "bob," or shilling, when speaking of English coins. The guesser can't be far wrong in his date, knowing the reign. In enumeration the several digits are represented by the letters of the alphabet; h is the eighth letter, and therefore stands for 1800. Any odd numbers might have been spelt out in similar fashion. Both professor and clairvoyant should speak rapidly and decisively to prevent detection, and should constantly change the key-word from first to last, and so on. A knowledge of French or some other language will be of great service in concealing the machinery. When a player has to pay a forfeit, he gives in pledge some piece of portable property, which he will afterwards, at the end of the game, have to redeem in due order. One player is declared judge, and, with eyes blindfold stands with his face to the wall, while another takes up the several pledges separately and asks, "Here is a pretty thing, and a very pretty thing; what is to be done to the owner of this very pretty thing?" Or, omitting the formula, asks merely, "What is to be done to the owner of this?" The blindfolded player, who, of course, does not know to whom each forfeit belongs, and therefore cannot be accused of unfairness, assigns for each forfeit a task which must be fulfilled before the pledge can be reclaimed. This calling of the forfeits requires no little ingenuity, tact, and judgment, and the entire success depends upon the suitability of the penalties to the company and the circumstances. The judge must take into consideration not only what penalties can be enforced, but what will afford the most fun, and at the same time must avoid the slightest shadow of offense. Where the party is composed entirely of boys with no great inequality of ages, the task is tolerably easy; but where there is a mixed company of girls and boys, not only must the penalty attached to any forfeit be such as a girl could perform, but it must be such as no girl would object to perform. In cases like this it is better to get an older person-a lady if possible to cry the forfeits; and where such is not forthcoming, it is better not to cry them at all; or, if that be too hard a trial for the young players' philosophy, to cry the girls' and the boys' separately. As the penalties, therefore, must depend so entirely upon the special circumstances of each occasion on which they are imposed, it would be impossible for us to find space enough to give a list sufficiently comprehensive to be of any real service as a guide to the judge in all cases. The old stock forfeits are so well known and so stale that it would be mere waste of time and space to insert them here. We might certainly give a few new ones; but the exigencies of space would, as we said above, prevent out giving more than a very few, and we therefore prefer to leave them entirely to the ingenuity and invention of the judge for the time being, who, if he will be worth his salt, with one glance of his eye round the group of expectant pledge owners gather more hints for penalties suited to the occasion than he would from whole pages of printed instructions } Mḥist. "Troy owes to Homer what Whist owes to Hoyle." DMOND HOYLE, the great authority on Whist, published his treatise in 1743. Of all card games, this is perhaps the most interesting; and certainly, if such a term can be used in regard to anything in which mere chance is an element, the most scientific. "A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of the game.' This was the celebrated toast of a lady, who, next to her devotions, loved a good game of Whist. "Man is a gaming animal, and his passion can scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards with only a few cents for the stake." Now then for our first lesson on Whist. This game-Long Whist-is played by four persons, with a complete pack of cards, fifty-two in number. The four players divide themselves into two parties, each player sitting opposite his partner. This division is usually accomplished by what is called cutting the cards. the two highest and the two lowest being partners; or the partnership may be settled by each player drawing a ard from the pack spread out on the table, or in any other way that may be decided on. The holder of the lowest card is the dealer. But previous to their being dealt, the cards are "made "—that is, shuffled-by the elder hand, and "cut" by the younger hand. The undermost card in the pack, after it has been shuffled and cut, is the "trump." The whole pack is now dealt out card by card, the dealer beginning with the player on his left, the elder hand. The last card-the trump-is then turned face upwards on the table, where it remains till the first trick is won, and turned. The deal completed, each player takes up his alloted thirteen, and arranges them in his hand according to the several suitsthe Hearts, Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds by themselves in their regular order. The elder hand now leads or plays a card. His left-hand adversary follows, then his partner, and last of all his right-hand adversary. Each player must “follow suit," if he can, and the highest card of the suit led wins the "trick" or if either player cannot follow suit, he either passes the suit--that is, plays some card of another suit, or trumps; that is, plays a card of the same suit or denomination as the turned-up card. Thus, we will suppose the first player leads a Nine of Spades, the second follows with a Ten, the third, who perhaps holds two high cards, plays a Queen, and the last a Two or a Three. The trick would then belong to the third player who won it with his Queen. The winner of the trick then leads off a card, and the others follow as before, and so on till the thirteen tricks are played. A second deal then takes place as before, and so the game proceeds till one or the other side has obtained ten tricks, which is game. The order and value of the cards in Whist is as follows:Ace is highest in play and lowest in cutting. Then follow King, Queen, Knave, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five. Four, Three, Two, the lowest. But there are other ways of scoring points besides tricks. The four court cards of the trump suit are called honors; and the holders of four score four towards the game; the holders of three score two; but if each player or each set of partners hold two, then honors are said to be divided, and no points are added to the game on either side. Thus, A and C (partners) have between them the Ace, Knave, and Queen. At the end of the deal or round, they say and score two by honors; or, B and D hold Ace and King only, while A and B have Queen and Knave in their hands; then the honors are divided. All tricks above six score to the game. All honors above two score in the way explained-two points for three honors, four points for four honors. There being thirteen tricks which must be made in each round or deal, it follows that seven points may be gained, which, with the four honors, would finish the game in a single deal. This stroke of good fortune is, however, seldom attained. It is much more likely that four or five deals are made before the game is won. As we have explained, ten points are game in Long Whist In Short Whist, wb.ch is the ordinary game cut in half, five points win. But if either side get up to nine points, then the holding of honors is of no advantage. In the language of the Whist-table, at nine points honors do not count. But at eight points, the player who holds two honors in his hand has what is called the privilege of the call. That is, he may ask his partner if he has an honor-"Can you one?" or "Have you an honor?" If the partner asked does hold the requisite Court card, the honors may be shown. the points scored, and the game ended. But the inquiry must not be made by the player holding the two honors till it is his turn to play, nor must the holder of a single honor inquire of his partner if he has two. Nor does the holding of four honors entitle the partners to show them at any stage of the game except at eight points. To put the matter epigrammatically at six or seven points, tricks count before honors; at eight points, honors count before tricks. At nine points, honors do not count. It must be understood. however, that, in order to count honors at eight points they must be shown before the first trick is turned, or they cannot he claimed till the round is completed. Thus it might happen that the partners at eight points, holding the honors between them, and neglecting to show them, would be beaten, even though the other side wanted three or four tricks for the game. A Single Game is won by the side which first obtains the ten points by a majority of one, two, three or four points. A Double Game is made when one side obtains ten points before the other has scored five. A Lurch or Triplet is won by the obtainment of ten points to nothing on the other side. A Rubber is two games won out of three. The Points of a Rubber are reckoned thuswise-For the single game, one point; for the double, two points and for the rub, two points. Thus it is possible to obtain six points in one rubber-namely, two doubles and the rub. A Lurch or Triplet is in some companies reckoned for three points. Generally, however, a lurch is only counted as a double game where triplets are counted; it is possible, therefore, for the winners to obtain eight points. A Slam is when the whole thirteen tricks are won in a singie hand, TECHNICAL TERMS USED IN WHIST. Ace.-Highest in play, lowest in cutting. Blue Peter.-A signal for trumps, allowable in modern play. This term is used when a high card is unnecessarily played in place of one of lower denomination, as a ten for a seven, five for a deuce, etc. Bu ber-Two games won in succession before adversaries ha e won one: that is, a rubber of full points-Five at Lo Whist, Eight at Short. Cut.ifting the cards, when the uppermost portion (not fewer than three) is placed below the rest. The pack is ther ready for the dealer. Cutting-in-Deciding the deal by each player taking up not fewer than three cards, and the two highest and two lowest become partners. In case of ties, the cards must be cut again. Cutting out-In case of other person or persons wishing to play the cut is adopted as before, when the highest (or low. est as may be agreed on) stands out of the game, and does not play Call, the ―The privilege of the player at eight points asking his partner if he holds an honor-" Have you one?" The partners having eight points are said to have the call. When each side stands at eight, the first player has the privilege. As explained in a previous page, no player can call till it is his turn to play. Deal-The proper distribution of the cards, from left to right, face downwards. Deal mis.--A misdeal is made by giving a card too many or two few to either player in which case the deal passes to the next hand. (See Laws.) Deal fresh.-A fresh or new deal, rendered necessary by any violation of the laws, or by any accident to the cards of players, Double-Ten points scored at Long Whist before adversaries |