In "history," the starting player whispered a sentence of his invention to be repeated around the room and written down each time. Dickens started out by whispering to Jane Bigelow: "A controversy arose between Mr. Green and Mrs. Brown in consequence of the conduct of young Black, who it appeared had made turtle soup in a coal scuttle belonging to Miss White without her consent."

From Jane whispering to Annie Fields, the sentence went around the room until it became, "A controversy arose between Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Green about a coal scuttle which Mrs. Brown couldn't tell anything about." Dickens exclaimed of the butchered sentence, "Such is History!"