Alexander Dyce, A General Glossary to Shakespeare's Works

handy-dandy KING LEAR, iv. 6. 153. A very old game among children. Florio has “Bazzichiare, to shake betweene two hands, to play at handie dandie.” Ital. and Engl. Dict. As it is now played—a child hides something in his hand, and makes his play-fellow guess in which hand it is: if the latter guesses rightly, he wins the article, if wrongly, he loses an equivalent. “Sometimes,” says Mr. Halliwell, “the game is played by a sort of sleight of hand, changing the article rapidly from one hand into the other, so that the looker-on is often deceived, and induced to name the hand into which it is apparently thrown. This is what Shakespeare alludes to by changing places.”