“We all sit round in a circle,” he began in a doleful voice. “Wait a minute, what do you do next? Oh, yes,” he went on, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Watcher had been successfully isolated from Mrs. Pottage. “Now we all join hands.” Perhaps the emotion of finding her plump hand firmly imprisoned in his own was too much for the ship-chandler, for he could not remember what was the next move. “Wait a minute,” he implored, holding Mrs. Pottage’s hand tighter than ever. “Don’t move, and I’ll remember in a jiffy. Oh, yes, I’ve got it! I knew I would! Somebody has to be in the middle of the circle. Mr. Watcher, perhaps you’d stand in the middle, will you?” “Hadn’t you better stand in the middle yourself?” the coal-merchant replied. “You thought of this game. We aren’t guilty.” “Don’t be so gruff, Watcher,” said Mrs. Pottage sternly. “You’ve been sitting like a skelington at the feast ever since you arrived. Wake up and be a man, do.” Thus adjured Mr. Watcher unwillingly stood up in the middle of the circle. “What’s he do now, Hopkins?” Mrs. Pottage asked. “I’m trying to remember. Oh, yes, of course, I know. I know. I know! He’s blindfolded,” Mr. Hopkins exclaimed in a tone as near to being cock-a-whoop as his low-pitched funereal voice could achieve. “Mrs. B., you’ve got a nice big handkerchief. Tie Watcher up, there’s a good soul,” the hostess ordered. Mrs. Bugbird in a gurgle of suppressed laughter muffled the coal-merchant’s disagreeable countenance with her reserve handkerchief, from which his bald head emerged like one of those costly Easter eggs that repose on silk in the centre of confectioners’ shops. “Now what does he do, Hopkins?” “Just a minute, Mrs. Pottage. I’m stuck again. No, I’m not. I remember perfectly now. Turn him round three times.” This was done, and there was another pause. “Well, what next?” everybody asked impatiently. “That’s just what I’m bothered if I can remember,” said the chandler at last. “It’s on the tip of my tongue too ... but wait ... yes, no ... yes, I’ve got it ... he asks ... no, that’s wrong, _he_ doesn’t ask anything, we ask _him_.... Now what the juice is it we do ask him?... Don’t say anything, because I’ll remember in a minute.... I’m bound to remember.... You see, it’s such a long time since I played this game that some of the rules....” “Look here,” Mr. Watcher’s irate voice growled through the folds of the handkerchief, “if you think I’m going to stand here wrapped up like a Stilton cheese while you remember what game you played with Nore in the Ark, you’re blooming well mistaken. And that’s that.” “If you’d only have a morsel of patience, Mr. Watcher. I can’t remember the whole of a big game all at once,” protested the chandler, still clinging desperately to Mrs. Pottage’s hand. “But I will remember it. It’s on the tip of my tongue, I tell you.”