“First, you must leave the room while I explain the game to the others,” said Ruth; “go out in the hall, please, entirely out of hearing, and don’t come back until we send for you.”
“Very well,” said Lorraine, gaily; “when you want me you’ll find me sitting on the stairs, with my fingers in my ears.”
“Now,” said Ruth, after Lorraine had gone, “we must all sit round in a sort of an oblong circle.”
“An ‘oblong circle’ is easily managed,” said Clifford Morse, as he began to arrange chairs around the walls of the long parlour. The other boys helped him, and soon the whole party were sitting in a continuous ring around the room.
“The game,” went on Ruth, “is to have Lorraine guess, by asking questions, an object which we’ve all agreed upon. That part of the game is something like ‘Twenty Questions,’ but the difference is, that instead of taking a single object we each of us have in mind our right-hand neighbour. For instance, Patty’s right-hand neighbour, as we sit, is Kenneth Harper, but his right-hand neighbour is Adelaide Hart. So you see, we must each answer Lorraine’s questions truthfully, but in regard to the person who sits at our right-hand; and the answers will seem to her contradictory and confusing.”
Patty was quick-witted enough to see at once that these conflicting answers would seem like ridiculing Lorraine’s intelligence, and would certainly be provoking enough to make anyone angry. It was a severe test, but she privately determined that if Lorraine showed signs of irritation, she would explain the game at once, and not allow it to be played to a finish.
When everybody thoroughly understood the directions, Clifford went out, and escorted Lorraine back to the parlour.
Then Clifford resumed his seat, and Lorraine was left sitting on a piano stool in the middle of the room, so that she might twirl about and face each one in turn.
“We have all agreed upon an object,” said Ruth, “which we want you to guess. You may question us each in turn, and you may ask any questions you choose; if your questions can be answered by yes or no, we’re obliged to answer them, but if not, we may do as we choose about it. Now suppose you begin with me, and then go right around toward the right.”
“Wait a moment, Lorraine,” said Patty; “before you start remember this: everything we tell you will be the exact truth, although it may not seem so.”