I beg you not to be startled: but if you are, then test the truth of my
theory by playing to-night at the game called ‘Russian Scandal; ' in which
a story, repeated in secret by one player to the other, comes out at the
end of the game, owing to the inaccurate and–forgive me if I say
it–uneducated brains through which it has passed, utterly unlike its
original; not only ludicrously maimed and distorted, but often with themost fantastic | 
