Cudgel Game

“Here is a new game, which is causing a great deal of amusement at social gatherings in Europe. Two boys, or young men, are blindfolded, and in the right hand of each is placed a stout roll of paper in the form of a club or cudgel. The players then have to lie down on the carpet and to grasp each other by the left hand. Thereupon the fun begins. One of the players asks the other, ‘Are you there?’ When the answer, ‘Yes’ comes he raises his right hand and strives to hit with his cudgel the spot where, from the sound of the voice, he supposes the other player’s head to be. The other player, however, is at perfect liberty to move his head after he has answered ‘Yes,’ and the result is that in nine cases out of ten the blow misses his head and falls on his shoulders or some other part of his body. In that case it is his turn to retaliate, and so the game goes on indefinitely, the sole object of the player who asks the question being to strike the other player’s head, and that of the player who answers to save his head from being struck."— Thomas Sheppard Meek

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