Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/378

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REAL CAT'S-CRADLE
335

figure from "B's" hands (Fig. 755). The "Fish in a Dish" consists of a large central lozenge, divided lengthwise by two straight strings; and right and left near and far triangles. There is a loop on each thumb and a loop on each index, but no string passing across the backs of both thumb and index.

(8) Clock

My father, Dr. Horace Howard Furness, tells me that as a child he ended the game of Cat's-cradle by forming the "Clock" from the "Fish in a Dish," in the following manner: First: "B" arranges the two strings which pass from side to side through the central lozenge so that, uncrossed, they can easily be separated into a near string and a far string.

Second: "B" now turns his left hand Mth the palm facing upward, and picks up in the bend of the left little finger the near string which passes through the central lozenge, and draws it over the other strings toward "A"; then turning the

thumbless
thumbless


Fig. 757.

right hand with the palm facing upward he picks up in the bend of the right little finger the far string which passes through the central lozenge, and draws it over the other strings away from "A" (Fig. 756). Putting the right thumb from above into the right far triangle, the right index from above into the left far triangle, the left thumb from above into the right near triangle, and the left index from above into the left near triangle, "B" turns the thumb and index of each hand toward the centre of the figure and up into the central lozenge (Fig. 757), when, by drawing the