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What Shall We Do Now? 15
oranges or lemons ? and if he says oranges, is placed accordingly behind that one of his capturers who is to have the oranges on his side. The procession and the rhyme begin again, and so on until all are caught and are ranged on their respective sides. Then a handkerchief is placed on the floor between the captains of the oranges and the lemons, and both sides pull, as in the " Tug of War" (p. 33), until one side is pulled over the handkerchief.
The players sit round the room in a large circle, and, after appointing a postmaster to write down their names and call out the changes, choose each a town. One player is then blindfolded and placed in the middle. The game begins when the postmaster calls out the first journey, thus, " The post is going from Putney to Hong-Kong." The player who has chosen Putney and the player who has chosen Hong-Kong must then change places without being caught by the blind man, or without letting him get into either of their chairs first. Otherwise the player who is caught, or who ought to be in that chair, becomes the blind man. Every now and then "General Post" is called, when all the players have to change seats at the same time ; and this gives the blind man an excellent chance.
A wooden bread-platter or a plate, to serve as trencher, is placed in the middle of the room. The players sit round it in a large circle, each choosing either a number by which to be known, or the name of a town. The game is begun by one player taking up the trencher, spinning it, calling out a number or town belonging to another, and hurrying back to his place. The one called has to spring up and reach the trencher before it falls, and, giving it a fresh spin, call some one else. So it goes on. On paper there seems to be little in it, but in actual play the game is good on account of the difficulty of quite realising that it is one's own borrowed name that has been called. |
General post
Turn thi trencher. |
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