The object of the game is to guess which of the words from any of the selecting cards any person may have fixed upon.
Let any one choose a card out of the selecting cards, and after he has fixed upon a word, give it back to you; when receiving it, carefully note the last word upon it, which will give you, by the aid of the key word, the number of the card; this you must keep secret, and you then give him all the grouped cards, and request him to show you the cards which contain the words he fixed upon.
You can then announce the word; for the number of the word from the top on the grouped card is the same as the number of the selecting card, from which he made his choice.
Suppose he made his choice from the card which has Theodore for its last word—this is No. 4; when he shows you the grouped card, which he says contains the selected word, you will know that Ralph, the fourth from the top, is the name he fixed upon.
DIVIDING THE BEER.
During the siege of Sebastopol, when the troops were on "short allowance," a can of eight pints of porter was ordered to be equally divided between two messes; but having only a five pint can, and one which held three pints, it was found impossible to make this division, till one of the clever sappers suggested the following method; and, to understand it, we will put down the contents of each of the three cans at each stage of the process; commencing with
| 8-pt. | 5-pt. | 3-pt. | ||
| The 8-pint can full, and the others empty, | 8 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1. | Filled the 5-pint can | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| 2. | Filled the 3-pint can from the 5-pint | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 3. | Pour the contents of the 3-pint into the 8-pint | 6 | 2 | 0 |
| 4. | Transfer the 2 pints from the 5-pint to the 3-pint | 6 | 0 | 2 |
| 5. | Filled the 5-pint from the 8-pint | 1 | 5 | 2 |
| 6. | Fill up the 3-pint from the 5-pint | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| 7. | Poured the 3 pints into the 8-pint; completing the feat | 4 | 4 | 0 |
This was a dexterous expedient of the worthy sapper, the only objections to it being the time the thirty men had to wait, and the resulting flat condition of the beer.
THE DIFFICULT CASE OF WINE.
A gentleman had a bottle containing 12 pints of wine, 6 of which he was desirous of giving to a friend; but he had nothing to measure it, except two other bottles, one of 7 pints, and the other of 5. How did he contrive to put 6 pints into the 7-pint bottle?