" and "Double Acrostics." The simple ones
are very simple. When the players are all ready a word is chosen by
one of them, either from thought or by looking at a book and taking
the first promising one that occurs. Perhaps it is "govern." Each
player then puts the letters forming "govern" in a line down the
paper, and the object of the game is to find, in a given time, words
beginning with each of those letters. Thus, at the end of time, one
player might have--

G ravy
O range
V iolet
E sther
R obin
N umbskull

The players then describe their words in turn, one letter going the
round before the next is reached, and from these descriptions the
words have to be guessed, either by any player who likes or by the
players in turn. The player whose paper we have quoted might describe
his words like this: G---- "Something that makes hot beef nice"; O---- "A
fruit"; V---- "A flower"; E---- "A girl's name"; R---- "A bird"; and
N---- "A name for a silly person." If any one else has the same word
neither of you can score it, and it is therefore important to seek for
the most unlikely words.

Another way of playing "Simple Acrostics" is to insist on each word
being the same length. Thus "govern" might be filled in by one player
thus:--

G rave
O ddly
V erse
E arth
R ebel
N inth

Double Acrostics

In "Double Acrostics" the game is played in precisely the same way,
except that the letters of the word, after having been arranged in a
line down the paper, are then arranged again in a line up the paper,
so that the first letter is opposite the last, and the last opposite
the first. Thus:--

G N
O R
V E
E V
R O
N G

The players have then to fill in words beginning and ending with the
letters as thus arranged. One paper might come out thus:--

G rai N
O rde R
V ersatil E
E ... V
R apall O
N othin G

This word is rather a hard one on account of the E and V. As a rule,
words of only three letters are not allowed in "Acrostics," nor are
plurals. That is to say, if the word has to end in "S," one must not
simply add "S" to an ordinary word, such as "grooms" for G----S, but
find a word ending naturally in "S," such as "Genesis."

It is not necessary to invert the same word in order to get letters
for the ends of the words. Two words of equal length can be chosen and
arranged side by side. Thus (but this is almost too difficult an
exam