One person, who is running the game (who is called the Gossiper) says: "The priest of the parish has lost his considering cap.
The aim is to be furthest away from the "losing row" when the Gossiper decides the game is over.
[3] An individual variation on this game that is common amongst Zimbabwean Scout troops goes something like this: Everyone sits in a circle.
The challenges in this version of the game are remembering who you are (it might change every time someone goes to the dogbox) and answering quickly enough.
To help new players, the chairs are sometimes labelled with their correct "number", although this does remove some of the fun that comes from complete confusion.
Another version is titled "The Prince of Paris" and is played with all the people in a line (about 15–20).
Accusations and denials fly around the room in an orderly patterned sequence as to who may have taken the hat.
The trick of the game is that while the first chair in the circle is the priest and next to him is his lieutenant Man Jack, each subsequent chair around the circle is named after the person sitting in it at the beginning of the game.
Of course there can be liberal interpretation as to what constitutes a violation of the rules such as inexact responses or delays in responses or untimely responses, but it can be left up to the priest to make a decision (or mob rule in the case of priest violations since Man Jack in unlikely to be trusted).
The script familiar to this editor was The sir/sirrah distinction was used to demark relative status and the various participants were obliged to interpret their script by choosing an emotion selected from a wide range – confidence, arrogance, fear, offence, surprise, etc.
Everyone is then required shift to the right one seat and then assumes that position's number (or name).