This is a capital game when well played, and the antics and grimaces of boys who are mimics cause great merriment.
It also gives a boy a good notion of how mechanical labour is done, as no boy will ask for work unless he understands something of the nature of the business he solicits to be employed upon.
The game begins thus, and it matters not how many boys are engaged in it:
—A line is drawn; within that line is the shop, and when a bad workman is discharged he is pushed across the line.
The employer, or master, should be a very sharp lad. A boy comes up, and the master asks him if he wants a day’s work; the boy says he does. He is then asked what trade he is; if he says a tailor, a coat is supposed to be given to him to make; if a shoemaker, a pair of shoes; if a tinker, a saucepan to bottom; if a stonemason, a stone to cut or saw, and every boy must imitate the actions of the tailor, shoemaker, &c., while at work, whatever the trades may be.
Then the master looks over the work, finds fault, gets in a rage, discharges the workman, and, if he can, turns him out of the shop. But if in the struggle the boy turns the employer out, he then becomes master, and the other is set to work.
So that, after a few good-natured trials of strength, each boy in turn generally becomes master.
Excerpt from the book:
EVERY BOY’S BOOK: A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS.
EDITED BY EDMUND ROUTLEDGE.
With more than Six Hundred Illustrations
FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS.
LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.
1869.
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