CHAPTER III-GAMES OF THOUGHT,

T

WIT AND MEMORY

Miscellaneous Games

JAPANESE GOBANG

HIS is the Japanese equivalent for our game of checkers, and, while it seems simple at first,

requires considerable skill to become the winner. All who try it admit it to be interesting.

The game is played on a board ruled into 256 squares, each alternate square being coloured, using twenty-four coloured disks. Each player has a different colour. Two, three, or four persons may play.

As it is difficult to find the requirements for the game at the shops, they may easily be achieved by home talent and ingenuity. The board may be made in imitation of a checker-board, or of the kind used for the game of "Helma," cut out of pasteboard or heavy cardboard. The coloured disks may be bone buttonsthat come in various shades-or they may be cut from Bristol-board, using a thimble or penny for a pattern. The game is played as follows:

Each player, in turn, lays a disk on a square. The order is repeated until each player has five pieces upon the board. The aim is to make a row of five counters in a line, either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally on the board-which plan the opponents, of course, try to frustrate and oppose. If none of the players succeeds

in making a row of five, other disks are laid down and the game continues. If no row of five appears until all the disks are on the board, then the pieces are moved in turn, in any direction, but one square at a time, until one succeeds in making the line of five. It is as much the object to prevent one's opponents from making a line as to form one's own.

Another way of playing the game, where there are but two contestants, is to give to each fifty pieces. With these, each player tries to place the counters of his opponent in such a position as to be unable to move. When one is successful in entirely surrounding a piece, that piece is forfeited and is taken off the board. The one who keeps his men longest on the board wins the game.

SHADOW PORTRAITS AND PICTURES

A sheet, suspended from the rod on which portières are hung between two rooms, should be stretched tightly and made smooth by tacking to the floor and to the sides of the opening. It should be made uniformly wet with a large paint-brush or a sponge. where the audience is seated is left in total darkness; that on the other side of the curtain, occupied by the actors, is lighted by a lamp placed on a table two feet

in the

The room

rear of the sheet. The actors, disguised with

masks, wigs, false moustaches, etc., then walk or stand between the light and the sheet so as to throw their shadows on the latter, while the audience shout their guesses as to whose shadow is seen, or write them on the cards previously provided. persons and things

seen in profile are seen effectively.

In the effort to mystify the spectators the tall players seem short, the short stand upon stools to increase their

height, the men wear women's clothes, and the gentlest of her sex will assume the airs of a bravado. False noses and chins, or at least supplementary ones, may be made out of beeswax, which adheres closely to the face and may be easily removed. A Punch and Judy fight, not forgetting the baby, may be depicted in shadow; and the rhymes and stories of Mother Goose are the simplest of problems for representation. Little Jack Horner, wearing a big collar and pinafore and holding a mince pie from which he takes the traditional plum to transfer it to his mouth; Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son, with a pig under his arm, cut out of pasteboard, may run across the illuminated field; or Simple Simon may be seen fishing in a pail of water, according to the legendary account of his vast simplicity.

One of the most effective exhibitions of shadow art was given illustrating the story of the "Tall Young Oysterman" and his emulation of Leander's swimming feat. It lends itself easily to the various scenes of the thrilling tale, the interest of which is furthermore enhanced if some one sings a verse of the song in explanation of the successive scenes.

MUSICAL MYSTERIES

Upon arrival, the guests were given cards, with small coloured pencils attached by narrow ribbons of the same shade, upon which cards were numbered lines.

It was explained that they were to note upon these lines their guesses as to what they supposed the different articles about the room represented-each object having some musical significance.

Their attention thus drawn to the peculiar furnishings of tables, book-case, mantels, etc., they set to work with interest to read the riddle, hunting in couples or

alone, and writing their guesses with great eagerness

and merry rivalry.

The articles scattered about the room were:

1. A quire of paper.

2. Three little dolls dressed alike and looking alike. 3. A carpenter's brace.

4. A watch.

5. A razor.

6. The chin-rest from a violin.

7. A card on which was written XL.

8. A name written on a sheet of

9. A pair of apothecary's scales.

paper.

10. The base taken from a table-bell.

11. A peck measure containing two beets. 12. A heavy string.

13. A flatiron with the letter B on its face.

14. A cardboard letter C hung from the gas-fixture. 15. A lump of tar.

16. A pipestem.

17. A large half-tone engraving.

18. A bank note.

19. A baby's shoe with an O on the sole.

20. A stout cane.

21. A love-letter which starts out bravely, but has a

large blot half-way down the page.

22. A necktie.

23. A bar of iron.

24. A door-key.

25. A pocket rule or tape-measure.

26. A twenty-five-cent piece with a black court. plaster dot pasted on it.

27. A small bunch of flowers and a lock of hair tied with a ribbon.

28. A circular piece of cardboard cut into three equal pieces.

The musical terms these things were supposed to

Another way of playing the game, which requires less preparation on the part of the hostess, is to give the players pads and pencils and request them to describe the following articles in musical terms:

1. A support for the trousers.