Copy the simple diagram on a conveniently large sheet of cardboard or paper, and use four marked counters to represent the Dutchman, his wife, and the two hogs.
At the beginning of the game these must be placed on the squares on which they are shown. One player represents Hendrick and Katrün, and the other the hogs. The first player moves the Dutchman and his wife one square each in any direction (but not diagonally), and then the second player moves both pigs one square each (not diagonally); and so on, in turns, until Hendrick catches one hog and Katrün the other.
This you will find would be absurdly easy if the hogs moved first, but this is just what Dutch pigs will not do.
[79].—The Thirty-one Game.
This is a game that used to be (and may be to this day, for aught I know) a favourite means of swindling employed by card-sharpers at racecourses and in railway carriages.
As, on its own merits, however, the game is particularly interesting, I will make no apology for presenting it to my readers.
The cardsharper lays down the twenty-four cards shown in the illustration, and invites the innocent wayfarer to try his luck or skill by seeing which of them can first score thirty-one, or drive his opponent beyond, in the following manner:—
One player turns down a card, say a 2, and counts "two"; the second player turns down a card, say a 5, and, adding this to the score, counts "seven"; the first player turns down another card, say a 1, and counts "eight"; and so the play proceeds alternately until one of them scores the "thirty-one," and so wins.
Now, the question is, in order to win, should you turn down the first card, or courteously request your opponent to do so? And how should you conduct your play? The reader will perhaps say: "Oh, that is easy enough. You must play first, and turn down a 3; then, whatever your opponent does, he cannot stop your making ten, or stop your making seventeen, twenty-four, and the winning thirty-one. You have only to secure these numbers to win."