if there are four such men approaching from the East: by placing three of your men in the squares marked
with asterisks, you may form an impenetrable wall across the Rendezvous, and thus provide a set of
weary travellers--a polite attention which they will not soon forget. Similarly, if there are two of the enemy's
men approaching from the North-East: by placing three of your men, as here indicated, you will provide
one vacant square for
 the two guests, who will probably indulge in the pathetic strain: `Now one of us must stop outside,
But that one won't be me! So Tommy, make room for your Uncle!' Should you find that the enemy is likely to get all his men into the Rendezvous, while you still
have two or three men outside, remember that, as soon as all his men are in, he will replace one of
your outlying men with a fresh man of his own colour; and that he will most certainly choose for this
purpose whichever of the outlying men is nearest to the Rendezvous. Consequently, your best course
is to have no one of them nearer than the others. Keep them all together, at the same distance from the
Rendezvous, so that, whichever of them he transforms into an enemy, you can at once bar its progress
with your other outlying men.
The advice I have given, as to barring the progress of the enemy's men rather than merely hurrying on
with your own, is also worth remembering when playing for an `open' Rendezvous.
In carrying out the operation described in Rule 5--the interchanging of the two sets of men--difficulties
may arise when men have been taken off their squares, in settling which squares they came from. These
difficulties may lead to angry disputes; thence to mutual accusations of unveracity; thence to estrangement
of friends; and thence to family feuds, lasting through several generations. These deplorable results may
all be avoided by observing the following simple Rule:--
Move every one of the men, which are to be interchanged, into a corner of its square. Place a card-
marker on a square occupied by a white man (I am supposing the two colours to be `white' and `black'),
and take the white man off its square. Place this white man in the centre of a square occupied by a
black man, and take the black man off its square. Place this black man in the centre of a square occupied
by another white man. Proceed thus till all the men on the Board are in the centres of squares, and
you have one black man in hand, which of course you place on the square indicated by the card-marker.
Rule 5 serves to prevent the Mark from being so set that he who sets it is quite certain to get his men in
first--which certainly would rob the Game of much of its interest. In playing for a final 3-square Rendezvous,
the mere setting of the Mark would, but for this Rule, decide the Game.
CO-OPERATIVE BACKGAMMON Mr. Lewis Carroll . . . takes this opportunity of giving his readers the rules for Co-operative
Backgammon, which he thinks will prove a novel and interesting variety of the game. (1) Each player
throws three dice: with two he moves for himself, and with the third for his adversary. (2) If no one of
the three dice is available for the adversary, a player may use any two he likes; otherwise he is bound
to leave, as third dice, one which will be available for the adversary.
The Times: March 6, 1894.
A POSTAL PROBLEM
(June, 1891) THE Rule, for Commissions chargeable on overdue Postal Orders, is given in the `Post Office
Guide' in these words, (it is here divided, for convenience of reference, into 3 clauses)--
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