This is how it is played. Two people are seated in easy-chairs, for it has been found that you cannot be too comfortable for this game; any discomfort is apt to excite the mind, to disturb the grey matter, to interfere with that complete repose which is so essential a feature of the contest. These two are the players. They indulge in small talk and the smaller talker wins. The object of each player is to make such inanely conventional remarks that his opponent is reduced to silence. For example you are sitting next to a bishop, and it falls to you to start the conversation. Of course you don't say anything like "How sad about this Kikuyu business." No, you open like this. "Are you fond of dancing?" you say. The bishop will reply coldly, "It is many years since I danced." You sigh and murmur, "Ah! the dear old days!" I cannot imagine what his lordship will say next.
Of course the conversation in Platitudes must be connected and coherent. There is no use repeating "Wollah wollah, gollah gollah, ASQUITH must go, We want eight," or things of that sort. And you must not make mere blank statements like "The number of cigars annually imported into the U.S.A. is 26,714,811," unless they can be introduced deftly into the conversation.
You must imagine yourself paying a call in a London drawing-room, and you must say nothing that would not be possible and indeed suitable in that _milieu_. To attempt to arouse any interest or show any intelligence is wrong, but then neither must you betray any sign of actual imbecility. Anything that approaches gibbering cannot be too strongly condemned.
The players speak in turn and quotations are not allowed (at least not from living writers). The question as to whose talk is the smaller of the two is so much a matter of taste that the game can only be decided by an umpire or by the votes of the spectators. But there is seldom much doubt. It is not uncommon for one of the players to break down and become almost hysterical, and few can hold out long against one of the champions. Some people allow facial expression and general demeanour to count, but this I do not recommend. It gives some an unfair advantage, and I have known it lead to unpleasantness.