With a jack-knife, we carved the pieces quite tastefully out of bits of wood, and our board was the middle of a chest-lid, chalked into squares, which, in playing, we straddled at either end.

Having no other suitable way of distinguishing the sets, I marked mine by tying round them little scarfs of black silk, torn from an old neck-handkerchief.

Putting them in mourning this way, the doctor said, was quite appropriate, seeing that they had reason to feel sad three games out of four.

Of chess, the men never could make head nor tail; indeed, their wonder rose to such a pitch that they at last regarded the mysterious movements of the game with something more than perplexity; and after puzzling over them through several long engagements, they came to the conclusion that we must be a couple of necromancers..