126 CORNISH FEASTS
should you play and fail to take a trick you pay for the whole company, and are said to " be boarded."
" Ranter-go-round " was formerly played in four divisions marked with chalk upon a tea-tray ; or even, in some cases, on a bellows — it is now played on a table, and is called " Miss Joan." Any number of players may join in it. The first player throws down any card of any suit, and says : —
" Here's a as you may see.
2nd Player — Here's another as good as he.
^rd Player — And here's the best of all the three.
^.th Player — And here's Miss Joan, come tickle me."
The holder of the fourth card wins the trick. He sometimes added the words wee-wee; but these are now generally omitted. If the person sitting next to the forehand has neither one of the cards demanded (one of the same value as the first played in another suit), he pays one to the pool, as must all in turn who fail to produce the right cards. The player of the third may have the fourth in his hand, in which case all the others pay. The holder of the most tricks wins the game and takes the pool.
I once, about thirty years since, at this season of the year, joined some children at Camborne who were playing a very primitive game called by them " pinny-ninny." A basin turned upside down was placed in the centre of a not very large round table. The players were supplied with small piles of pins — not the well-made ones sold in papers, but clumsy things with wire heads — " pound-pins." A large bottle full of them might, then, always be seen in the general shop window of every little country village. Each in turn dropped a pin over the side of the basin, and he whose pin fell and formed a cross on the top of the heap was entitled to add them to his own pile. This went on until one player had beggared all the others. Poor children before Christmas often begged pins to play this game, and their request was always granted by the gift of two.
A wishing-well, near St. Austell, was sometimes called Pennameny Well, from the custom of dropping pins into it. Pcdna-a-mean is the old Cornish for " heads-and-tails." — (Sec Divination at St. Roche and Madron Well.)
