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What Shall We Do Now? 137
can be called a cannon for the purposes of the game. You then decide how many turns you will have. The game is played by placing the pencil on the cannon, shutting your eyes, and dashing the pencil across your enemy's side of the paper, straight or crooked, in any direction you like. Then you open your eyes, count how many dots the pencil line has passed through, and score them down. The player who, at the end of the number of turns settled upon, has gone through the greatest number of dots is the winner.
A box of letters is an unfailing help to pass the time. A word will sometimes keep a player puzzling for hours, which is, of course, too long. Lord Palmerston is said to have given the Queen a tremendous task with " Betrayal." " Pomegranate," " Orchestra," and " Scythe " are good examples of difficult words.
You can also take words and sentences seen on the journey, such as " Wait till the train stops," and " To seat five persons," and " Pears' Soap," and see how many words they will make. A more difficult task is to make anagrams of advertisements. " Lipton's Teas," for instance, makes " Taste on, lips."
The word-making game has been adapted into a writing competition. Each of the company is handed a card which has been prepared for the purpose beforehand by having names of a dozen animals, or towns, or flowers, or birds, or whatever it may be, written on it in what might be called twisted spelling. For instance, " butterfly " might be spelled thus, " trelbyfut," and " Manchester " thus, " Tramschene." A certain amount of time is given, and the winner is the player who has found out most words therein. A version of this game is to dot out all the letters of the word except the first and the last. You would put " Elephant" on
the paper thus, E......t, and tell your companion it was the
name of an animal. Or you might write "Peppeimint" thus, P........t, and tell him it was the name of a sweet. |
" Let ten " and words
" Letters " withapenal |
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