[To the Queen of Barbaloo.] --Penzance (Mrs. Mabbott). (_b_) Two children stand together joining hands tightly, to personate a fortress; one child stands at a distance from these to personate the King of Barbarie, with other children standing behind to personate the soldiers (fig. 1). Some of the soldiers go to the fortress and surround it, singing the first verse (fig. 2). The children in the fortress reply, the four first verses being thus sung alternately. The soldiers then go to the King singing the fifth verse (fig. 3), the remaining verses being thus sung alternately.
_=MAKING THE TRUMP.=_ When the trump is turned down, the general rule is for the eldest hand to make it next. The exceptions are when he has nothing in the next suit, but has at least two certain tricks in the cross suit, and a probable trick in a plain suit. It is safer to make it next with a weak hand than to cross it on moderate strength, for the presumption is that neither the dealer nor his partner had a bower in the turn-down suit, and therefore have none in the next suit. Such being the case, it is very likely that one or both may be strong in the cross suits, and it is not considered good policy to cross the suit unless so strong in it as to be reasonably certain of three tricks. Some players invariably make it next, regardless of their hands, unless they can play alone in the cross suit. Such a habit exposes them to the common artifice of the dealer’s turning it down for a euchre. A dealer holding a bower and three cards of the next suit, will often turn it down, and trust to the eldest hand making it next, which will give the dealer four trumps instead of two. The eldest hand should be on his guard against this when the dealer’s side has 3 scored. The dealer’s partner, on the other hand, should cross the suit almost as invariably as the eldest hand should make it next; for if his partner cannot take up the trump, and the eldest hand cannot make it next, their hands must be weak, and if it is passed to the pone, he will probably turn out to have a lone hand.
His game multiplier is therefore 3 (for the announced schneider), to which he adds 3 more for the Matadores, 6 altogether. The unit value of a heart Solo being 10, he could have gone on bidding to 60 had it been necessary, and he will win 60 from each of his adversaries if he succeeds in reaching 91 points in the counting cards he takes in in his tricks, together with what he finds in the Skat. If his adversaries got to 30 with their counting cards, he would have lost 60 to each of them, although he bid only 30, because he announced his game as schneider, and did not make it. Had he not announced the schneider, and reached 91 or more in his counting cards, he would have won a game worth 50, losing the extra multiplier by not announcing the schneider in advance; for a schneider made without announcing it is worth only 2. In reckoning the value of a game it is always safer to bid on playing “with” than “without” Matadores in a Solo or Tourné; because, although you may have a hand “without four,” you may find a Wenzel in the Skat, and if it is the club Jack you lose three multipliers at once. _=BIDDING.=_ The players must be familiar with the manner of computing the various games in order to bid with judgment, and without hesitation. Suppose you hold the three highest Matadores with an average hand, not strong enough in any one suit to play a Solo, but good enough for a Tourné. Your smallest possible game will be diamonds with three; which will be worth 5 multiplied by 4; 1 for the game, and 3 for the Matadores, 20 points. If you can get the game on any bid less than 20 you are absolutely safe, provided you can reach 61 in your tricks.
All Fours seems to have been popular with all classes of society at one time or another. Cotton’s “Compleat Gamester” gives it among the principal games in his day, 1674. Daines Barrington, writing a hundred years later, speaks of All Fours in connection with Whist. “Whist,” he says, “seems never to have been played on principles until about fifty years ago; before that time [1735] it was confined chiefly to the servants’ hall, with All Fours and Put.” Another writer tells us that Ombre was the favourite game of the ladies, and Piquet of the gentlemen _par excellence_; clergymen and country squires preferring Whist, “while the lower orders shuffled away at All Fours, Put, Cribbage, and Lanterloo.” In 1754 a pamphlet was published containing: “Serious Reflections on the dangerous tendency of the common practice of Card-playing; especially the game of All Four.” For many years All Fours was looked upon as the American gambler’s game _par excellence_, and it is still the great standby of our coloured brother; who would sooner swallow a Jack than have it caught. ALL FOURS, SEVEN-UP, OR OLD SLEDGE. _=CARDS.=_ Seven-up is played with the full pack of fifty-two cards, which rank A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2; the ace being the highest, both in cutting and in play.