It is very likely, however, that the nursery usage we are now concerned with is as old. Petronius Arbiter, in the time of Nero, describes Trimalchio as so playing with a boy. The latter, mounting as on horseback, smote his shoulders with the open hand, and laughing said, "Bucca, bucca, how many?"[96]
We will not undertake to decide whether the reported coincidence of the Latin and English formulas is a genuine example of transmission. The game, however, and the question, "How many?" have certainly endured for two thousand years, and very likely existed as long before the days of Petronius, or from a time as remote as that to which can be traced the more complicated game of "Morra."
No. 94.
Right or Left.
A common way of deciding a dispute, selecting players, or determining who shall begin a game, is to take a pebble or other object in the closed fist, and make a comrade guess in which hand it is contained.
The old-fashioned way of holding the hands, both in England and Germany, was to place one fist on top of the other; and a like usage formerly prevailed in New England, though we have not met with the English rhyme:
Handy-dandy riddledy ro,
Which will you have, high or low?
No. 95.
Under which Finger?
A child takes a bean in the hand, closes it, and asks a companion to guess under which finger it lies; if the latter fails, he must pay a bean.