In _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (i. 1. 159), Slender, when asked if Pistol had picked his purse, replies: "Ay, by these gloves, did he ... of seven groats in mill-sixpences and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shillings and twopence apiece." "Edward shovel-boards" were the broad shillings of Edward VI. which were generally used in playing the game. It has been suggested that Slender was a fool to pay two shillings and twopence for a shilling worn smooth; but it is possible that these old coins commanded a premium on account of being in demand for this game. The silver groat (fourpence) was originally used for the purpose, but the shilling, especially of this particular coinage, came to be preferred by players. Taylor the Water Poet makes one of these coins say:-- "You see my face is beardless, smooth, and plain, Because my sovereign was a child 't is known, When as he did put on the English crown; But had my stamp been bearded, as with hair, Long before this it had been worn out bare; For why, with me the unthrifts every day, With my face downward, do at shove-board play." "Penny-prick" is described as "a game consisting of casting oblong pieces of iron at a mark." Another writer explains it as "throwing at halfpence placed on sticks which are called hobs." It was a common game as early as the fifteenth century, and is reproved by a religious writer of that period, probably because it was used for gambling. Card-playing had become so general in the time of Henry VIII. that a statute was enacted forbidding apprentices to use cards except in the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses. Many different games with cards are mentioned by writers of the time, but few of them are described minutely enough to make it clear how they were played. Backgammon, or "tables," as it was called, was popular in Shakespeare's time. He refers to it in _Love's Labour's Lost_ (v. 2. 326), where Biron, ridiculing Boyet, says:-- "This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honourable terms." "Tick-tack" was a kind of backgammon; alluded to, figuratively, in _Measure for Measure_ (i. 2. 196): "thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack." "Tray-trip" was a game of dice, in which success depended upon throwing a "tray" (the French _trois_, or three); mentioned in _Twelfth Night_ (ii. 5. 207): "Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave?"