17. In the tight croquet the player must keep his foot firmly upon his own ball, and if the stroke move it the ball must afterwards be brought back to the position it occupied before it was struck.
[Some writers insist that if the croqueur’s ball slip, he loses his turn. This arrangement is too absurd to be tolerated for an instant.]
18. No ball can croquet, or be croqued, until it has passed through the first hoop.
[It has been the custom to allow a player to take up his ball, and play, when his turn comes, from the starting-post again, if he misses the first hoop. This plan, however, has nothing to recommend it. It would enable a player who wished to play last to do so at ease by intentionally missing the hoop, and is obviously so unfair that we have no wish to adopt it.]
19. No ball (except a rover) can croquet the same ball twice, until it (the croqueur) has passed through a hoop or touched the post since its first croquet.
[If, however, the croqueur be a rover, he cannot croquet the same ball twice in one turn. In either case, however, he is at liberty to strike the same ball twice, but this act does not allow him the privilege of a fresh stroke.]
20. A croquet need not necessarily be a distinct stroke. If the striking ball in its passage hit either a post or a hoop, and then cannon upon a ball, the privilege holds good; and if, also, one ball strike two or more others, each of these is croqued in the order in which they were struck; but the striker has only one additional stroke when he has croqued the lot, and not one for each ball he has struck.
21. As the moving of the croquing ball in the tight croquet is of itself illegal, it stands to reason that if this ball during the stroke slip and touch another ball, the player has not the right to claim the privilege of the croquet.
[In the loose croquet a player may by his croquing stroke drive his own ball through a hoop.]
