P.P.S.—I beg to offer, for the consideration of the Knot-untiers, the rules for another new Game, and shall gratefully receive suggestions for its improvement.
Mischmasch
A Game for Two Players, or Two Sets of Players
1. An ‘extract’ is a selected portion of a word (e. g. ‘ati,’ ‘tigu,’ and ‘gue’ are all extracts from ‘fatigue’). To ‘guess an extract’ is to guess any ‘admissible’ word (i. e. a word correctly spelt, and understood and used in good society) containing it: this need not be the word from which it was taken.
2. To begin the game, each Player invents an extract to set to the other, and says ‘ready’ when he has done so. When both are ready, the extracts are named.
3. When a Player thinks he has guessed the extract set him, or that it is hopeless, he ‘declares,’ by saying ‘guessed’ or ‘resigned.’
4. If he say ‘guessed,’ he names the word: if it be admissible, he scores one; if not, the other scores one, and he goes on guessing. If he say ‘resigned,’ the other names the word from which the extract came: if it be admissible, he scores two; if not, he who resigns it scores four.
5. If an extract be thus disposed of, the other Player must at once ‘declare’ or else supply a new extract. But no one is bound to ‘declare’ till a reasonable time (say a minute or two) has passed since he began to guess the extract he has in hand.
6. When neither has an extract in hand, the game proceeds as in Rule 2.
7. When either Player has scored 10, the other, if he has an extract in hand must ‘declare’ and proceed as in Rule 4. The game is over, and the highest score wins.
L. C.