who sell by retail, to make up a loss incurred in weighing or measuring; and a detachment or body of troops "drawn off" for a specific purpose, usually a reinforcement from the depot or reserve units to those abroad or in the field. For the use of the term "draft" or "draught" in masonry and architecture see DRAFTED MASONRY. DRAUGHTS (from A.S. _dragan_, to draw), a game played with pieces (or "men") called draughtsmen on a board marked in squares of two alternate colours. The game is called Checkers in America, and is known to the French as _Les Dames_ and to the Germans as _Damenspiel_. Though the game is not mentioned in the _Complete Gamester_, nor the _Académie de jeux_, and is styled a "modern invention" by Strutt, yet a somewhat similar game was known to the Egyptians, some of the pieces used having been found in tombs at least as old as 1600 B.C., and part of Anect Hat-Shepsa's board and some of her men are to be seen in the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum. An Egyptian vase also shows a lion and an antelope playing at draughts, with five men each, the lion making the winning move and seizing the bag or purse that contains the stakes. Plato ascribes the invention of the game of [Greek: pessoi], or draughts, to Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, and Homer represents Penelope's suitors as playing it (_Odyss._ i. 107). In one form of the game as played by the Greeks there were 25 squares, and each player had 5 men which were probably moved along the lines. In another there were 4 men and 16 squares with a "sacred enclosure," a square of the same size as the others, marked in the exact centre and bisected by one of the horizontal lines, which was known as the "sacred line." From the incident in the game of a piece hemmed in on this line by a rival piece having to be pushed forward as a last resort, arose the phrase "to move the man from the sacred line" as synonymous with being hard pressed. This and other phrases based on incidents in the game testify to the vogue the game enjoyed in ancient Greece. The Roman game of _Latrunculi_ was similar, but there were officers (kings in modern draughts) as well as men. When a player's pieces were all hemmed in he was stale-mated, to use a chess phrase (_ad incitas redactus est_), and lost the game. Other explanations of this phrase are, however, given (see _Les Jeux des anciens_, by Becq de Fouquières). The fullest account of the Roman game is to be found in the _De laude Pisonis_, written by an anonymous contemporary of Nero (see CALPURNIUS, TITUS). Unfortunately the texts are full of obscurities, so that it is difficult to make any definite statements as to how the game was played. As early as the 11th century some form of the game was practised by the Norsemen, for in the Icelandic saga of Grettir the Strong the board and men are mentioned more than once.