The Art of Amusing

CHAPTER XXI

It is marvellous how much amusement, in a quiet way, can be got out of a pair of scissors and a piece of card-board. Moreover, if the fingers be plump and white, we know of no position in which they look more tantalizingly bewitching, than when harnessed like a couple of white mice in the iron yoke of a pair of liliputian shears. We have passed many a pleasant evening in contemplating and cutting. On one occasion which we remember well, as it led to sudden and unexpected matrimony of a valued friend, we sat till twelve o'clock at night and used up a whole pack of cards, except the jack of diamonds, in making boomerangs and other mechanical notions. The boomerang we have already introduced to our readers, and some of the other contraptions we shall now proceed to explain. So scare up all the cards you can, and bring out your army of scissors.

One card puzzle we have often tried, and with which most persons are familiar, is that of the cross. You cut out of card or stiff paper, five pieces similar in shape and size to the following, viz. one piece of fig. 1, one piece of fig. 2, and three pieces of fig. 3.

These five pieces you put together so as to make a cross like Figure 4.

If you cannot solve the problem, look at the following cut, and you will cease to be puzzled.

Now we will try another card puzzle. Cut a piece of card or paper in the shape of a horse-shoe, and mark on it the places for the nails as represented in the subjoined sketch.

The puzzle is with two cuts to divide it into six parts, each part containing one nail.

Of course you cannot do it; we could not do it ourselves, and had to get the white mice to show us the way.

Somehow or another we never can find out anything with half a dozen taper fingers fluttering before our eyes. They bewilder us terribly, getting between the feet of our ideas, so to speak, and tripping us up; as young lambs might serve an awkward shepherd.

Well, the mystery is solved thus: you cut off the upper circular part, containing two of the nails; then by changing the position of the piece, another cut will divide the horse-shoe into six portions, each containing one nail.

The next trick is of a slightly different style. Cut two pieces of card like those represented in the diagram and place them in the position represented; the problem is, with a small stick or lead-pencil, to raise them from the table, without of course touching them with your fingers. You may try this as often as you like. If you succeed, well and good; if you do not, you can come back here and refer to the solution.

Here is a picture (No. 2) representing the way in which it is done; need we add anything in the way of explanation? We think not – so we won't do it.

CHAPTER XXII

Nix has a sister married to a wealthy leather merchant, whose place of business is in that odoriferous part of New York city called The Swamp. She is very beautiful, so we call her the Swamp Angel, and her husband's counting-house, Araby the Blest. Her children we have christened Findings, the youngest being always spoken of as the last. We have numerous jokes, of course, about the cobbler sticking to his last, the best quality of calf, and so on. She is very good-natured, and enjoys our badinage heartily, having a healthy vein of fun of her own, which transmutes all the little events of domestic life into the most refined humor. We like humor in a woman, or we should rather say in a gentlewoman; her culture and the natural tact peculiar to her sex, seem to eliminate any of those grosser particles which the coarse sensibilities of a man would not detect. Humor is as fascinating in a woman as sarcasm is abominable; it requires the very highest breeding to make the latter quality moderately safe in the hands of young women. For our own part, we would rather see a woman chew tobacco than hear her say sharp things. However, this is a digression. Mrs. Crofton, as we said, is very fond of fun, and in her house there is that perfect ease and abandon which can only be enjoyed by well-bred people; whoever visits there is at home; and a favored few, of whom the writer has the honor of being one, are treated quite as enfants de famille.

If, on calling, we find the heads of the house from home, we know where the claret and cigars are kept. Cicero, the negro waiter, obeying standing orders, promptly serves up some repast, and presses the hospitality of the house upon us with all the aplomb and grace for which his race are remarkable.

We drop into breakfast whenever we feel so disposed, and invite ourselves to dinner or tea as freely as though our friends kept a hotel; indeed we jocularly call their mansion by various public names: "The Crofton House," "Fifth Avenue Hotel," "The Shoe and Leather House," etc., etc. We have perpetrated more sheer, downright nonsense in their saloons than any forty strait-laced country school-children ever condescended to commit in their rural play-ground.

One day during the holidays, when some fourteen or fifteen friends had dropped in quite promiscuous, and were playing all kinds of tricks, a certain gentleman, imported from England, an officer in the Guards, genus Swell, "pwoposed" that we should play the Muffin man. As none of us had ever heard of this gentleman or the muffin business, there was a general cry for light.

"Oh, its vewy jolly, I asshua yaw. We all sit wound in a wing, yaw know, and one of us, yaw know, sings:

"'Do yaw know the muffin man,Do yaw know his name,Do yaw know the muffin man,That lives in Cwumpet Lane.'

Then the next person answers:

"'Oh, yes, I know the muffin man,Oh, yes, I know the muffin man,Oh, yes, I know the muffin man,Who lives in Cwumpet3 Lane.'

Then he turns to the next person, and when each person has sung his verse, yaw know, he then joins in the cawus,4 until it has gone all wound;5 then, yaw know, we all sing together:

"'We all know the muffin man,We all know his name;We all know the muffin man,Who lives in Cwumpet Lane.'

The game is, yaw know, to keep a gwave6 face all the time. If yaw laugh yaw pay a forfeit."

"The muffin man, the muffin man," echoed half a dozen voices; "let us play the muffin man."

The proposition being carried nem. con., we all sat "wound in a wing," or round in a ring, a circle of individuals of every age from three up to seventy. The Englishman, as head instigator, started the game, but before he got half through his verse we were all in convulsions of laughter; the next person took it up, but it was utterly useless to think of collecting the forfeits; we were all, in spite of every effort, like a party of maniacs reeling in our seats with merriment. There was something so utterly idiotic and absurd in a large party of respectable, rational beings, congratulating themselves in song that they "knew the muffin man of Crumpet Lane."

The English swell was immediately made an honorary member of our order, which is, as yet, without a name.

As we had all laughed our throats dry, Mr. Crofton invited us into the next room to see a man, as the Immortal Artemus delicately expresses it, so we all went in and saw the man. Some of us saw him in ice claret, some in hot punch, and some in cool champagne. One of Crofton's children, a maiden aged three years, whom they called Toney, as the diminutive of her Christian name, Antonia, came toddling in with the rest and said:

"Me, Nooni, want see man." Whereupon her father gave her a goblet of lemonade. She just tasted it, and handed it back with supreme contempt, saying:

"Me, Nooni, want banny wasser;" which being translated into English means:

"Me, Toney, wants brandy and water."

The little voluptuary was satisfied with a glass of weak claret punch.

During this conversation, Bub, a patriarch of five years, who had been looking on with a very patronizing air, now came forward, and laying his hand on his sister's shoulder, lisped out:

"Oh, you tunnen witty sing, zats nice banny water." Then turning to us in a confidential way, he continued: "She's a witty durl (little girl); she finks (thinks) zats banny water; banny water make witty durls fick (sick); me, big boy, banny water not make me fick."

We gave him a nondescript drink, flavored with every liquor on the table, which made him feel immensely proud.

"Let us play at earth, air, fire, and water," said Mrs. Crofton.

"Very well, Toney," answered her husband. "You can play at earth, and I will play with the fire-water." So saying, he filled himself a glass of punch, and stretched his limbs in an easy-chair.

"I think my husband is the laziest fellow living," laughed Mrs. Crofton. "I do believe if I were being carried off by wild Indians, he would make a note of it in his memorandum book, to have his porter attend to the matter next day."

Nix here interposed: "Dear, dear, these family quarrels are very painful. Come, Toney, and help to amuse the young people. Earth, air, fire, and water, whatever that may be, is the order of the day. How do you play it, Toney?"

"You all sit round the room, and then one of the party throws something at one of the others, at the same time naming one of the elements, earth, or air, or fire, or water; then he begins to count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and before he says ten, the person struck must name some animal living in the element chosen."

"Well, but what do you throw at the person?" inquired Nix; "a bureau, or decanter, for instance?"

"No, no; something small and soft, like a pair of gloves, or – or – oh, I know, wait a minute and I will run up-stairs and get the baby's worsted ball; that will be just the thing."

While Mrs. Crofton was absent, and she was detained rather longer than her mission seemed to warrant, Nix, in poking about in his sister's work-basket in pursuit of mischief, discovered a piece of white beeswax.

"Eureka!" he exclaimed, "I have it; we will play Toney a trick before she comes back; we will make her think some one has broken her new mirror."

Saying this, he advanced to a large pier-glass between the windows, and marked on it a huge star with the white wax something like the accompanying diagram, and then instructed one or two of us to make lamentations over it when his sister should return. We had not to wait long: in a few minutes Mrs. C. entered the room, whereupon we conspirators set to work gesticulating, and talking over the supposed catastrophe.

"Dear! dear!" said one, "how unfortunate!"

"How did it happen?" queried a second.

"I really don't know," answered a third. "I merely heard a crash, and – "

Here the lady came on the scene, looking quite flushed.

"I knew you children would be in some mischief," she said, "while I was away. I suppose this is some of my clumsy brother's work. He never comes into the house without destroying something."

"I'm very sorry," whined Nix, contritely; "it was quite an accident, I assure you; but I wonder whether it could not be mended?"

"Mended! you goose," exclaimed his sister. "Who ever heard of mending a broken mirror! It will take a pretty big cheque on your banker to mend that, sir."

"I am not so sure of that," replied Nix. "If it is not very bad I might – any way I will try." Suiting the action to the words, he advanced towards the mirror in such a position that his sister could not see what he did, and very deliberately wiped out the wax marks with his pocket-handkerchief. The astonishment of Mrs. C. at this miracle knew no bounds, nor could the gift of any amount of new pier-glasses have given her more pleasure.

"Now, then, all take your seats; we are going to play earth, air, fire, and water."

The circle is formed; our hostess holds the woollen ball poised in her hand for an instant, and then sends it flying into the bosom of a grey-haired old gentleman, at the same time uttering the word "air," and commencing to count rapidly, "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten." The old gentleman seemed utterly paralysed until she had finished counting, when he stammered out, "Wh – h – h – h – h – Pig!" amidst the roars of laughter of every one present. Of course he had to pay a forfeit, and took his turn at throwing the ball.

No one who has not seen this game played can conceive how ludicrous it is, or how much good wholesome laughter may be got out of it. When a sufficient number of forfeits had accumulated, they were cried in the usual manner. A good deal of ingenuity was displayed in awarding the tasks as well as in executing them. One was that the owner of this "pretty thing" should make an impromptu containing the names of every one in the room, and was managed in the following style:

"Three Howards – Corsey, Toney, Archibald, and Nix,Bub, Brown, Campbell, Jim and Jane have got me in a fix."

Another task imposed was, that the owner of a cigar-case should give us a riddle no one could solve. Going into the next room, this person procured a glass of wine, and holding it up said: "Gentlemen, I give you 'the ladies.'" No one attempted to solve this riddle. Another gentleman was ordered to point out the greatest goose in the room. This delicate task he set about performing in the following manner: he went to one young lady and asked her to hold up her face to the light, which she did, whereupon he imprinted a chaste salute on her lips; he then went to the next, but she persisted in holding down her head. He then turned round to his tasker and said: "Really it is impossible for me to determine which are the geese if they will not allow me to examine their bills." He was let off.

When all the forfeits were restored, even to little Toney's pocket-handkerchief, which she recovered by throwing herself into her papa's arms and hugging him round the neck, as the prettiest, and wittiest, and one she loved best, we all adjourned to broiled oysters and chicken salad.

CHAPTER XXIII

A few days ago when the blistering sun had converted the whole of New York city into one vast bake-oven, Nix called at our office, and proposed a flying trip to a certain watering-place. We will not mention its name for fear of incurring the suspicion of writing puffs. It was, however, sufficiently unfashionable to be tolerably comfortable. In order to reach our destination we took an early steamboat, leaving New York at six o'clock in the morning. With what intense satisfaction we became conscious of possessing lungs as we inhaled the cool air which had been washing itself all night in the great waves of the Atlantic ocean, or sleeping among the pine-woods of Delaware and New Jersey. There is nothing surely which makes one feel more grateful for the gift of life than to breathe the early morning air, laden with the perfume of salt-water. On this occasion the bracing atmosphere gave a relish to everything. The crisp broiled ham, the clam-fritters, and even the miserable coffee we had for breakfast on board, all tasted like food worthy of the gods. And as for our cigars (genuine Havanas) which followed the meal, their incense fairly sent us up to the seventh heaven of delight. But our business is to write on the Art of Amusing, and although an early steamboat trip may be one of the most enjoyable of things, it scarcely comes within the sphere of our work.

When we arrived at the hotel, we found the lady guests were in process of organizing a fair for the benefit of the sufferers by the great Portland fire.

Nix rushed into the enterprise with his usual enthusiasm; and by that evening, when the fair commenced, had fully qualified himself to start in business as a Three-sticks-a-penny-man. This plebeian pastime he had picked up at some English race or fair he had once visited, and now attempted with considerable success to acclimatize in America. His first step was to go to the village store and purchase a number of penknives, jack-knives, pincushions, tobacco-boxes, and similar contraptions. His second care was to cut half-a-dozen hickory-sticks or wands, of about four feet six inches in length, and of the thickness of your middle finger – that is, if you are blest with as spacious a paw as ourself; if not, we feel at a loss how to convey to your mind an approximate idea of the measurement. But suppose you take any healthy Irish day-laborer, and make his third finger the standard, not the part where the knobs are, but the spaces between them. Well, Nix cut six sticks of about the thickness of a healthy Irish day-laborer's third finger, in the spaces between the joints or knobs. He then cut a dozen other sticks of about the thickness of anybody's wrist, and about two feet long. Good! When he wished to commence operations on the fair-ground he selected a piece of level turf, and on one side of it dug six holes about the size of the late Daniel Webster's hat; these holes he half filled with sand, and in the centre of every hole he then stuck one of the sticks of about the thickness of a healthy Irish, etc., etc. Then on the top of each stick he balanced a jack-knife, pin-cushion, or some other object of more or less value. Now all his preparations were completed. He was prepared to receive customers. Standing in a commanding attitude, at a distance of about thirty feet from the arrangement we have described, he cried out in truly English style:

"Now, ladies and gents, ere yer are – three sticks a penny. Any lady or gent wishin to make a immediate fortin, and marry the being of his art on the result, have only to invest a few dollars in my establishment, and he will retire wealthy in arf a nour. Here, ladies and gents, look at these ere sticks" (holding up one of the clubs about the thickness of anybody's wrist), "hall you ave to do is to throw one of these ere at them there" (pointing to the pincushions, etc.); "hany article you knock orf is yourn, provided it don't fall inter the ole. Now, all I charge you for the priviledge orf throwin' three of these sticks, is the radicerlously small sum of ten cents. You are sure to win five dollars each time. Now, walk up; walk up, and take yer chance, and make yer everlastin fortin; marry the hobject of yer haffections, and build yer pallatial willa on the Udson."

Here a courageous youth stepped up, examined the whole arrangement minutely, and concluded to invest ten cents. Fortunately for Nix and the cause this youth knocked off a dollar jack-knife at the first throw. The consequence was an immense rush of patronage; indeed, the sport became so exciting that two similar establishments could have been kept in active operation. As it was, Nix cleared fifty-four dollars over and above all expenses for the good of the fair, and the benefit of the poor folks of Portland.

One of Nix's most profitable customers was a good-natured flashy young man of the wholesale dry-goods pattern, who appeared each day in some new shade of mustard-colored clothing, from the delicate yellow of freshly mixed pure Durham to the rich tones of stale German. He told us in confidence that he had intended to go to Saratoga, but the old gentleman and old lady (his father and mother) had insisted on his coming down with them to "this d – d hole;" then, suddenly recollecting that we had all probably come from chance, he added:

"Oh, this is a very nice place; first-rate; I don't say anything about that, only I had a party of friends going up to Saratoga, and they'll expect me; they know there's always fun going on where I am. It don't make any difference to me whether I spend fifty dollars or five hundred. I'm bound to have a good time. I appreciate anything; tha's – anything, you know – tha's got any wit into it, you know. Well, you know, there are some people who ain't got any idea; don't seem to appreciate, you know. Now, when I saw you throwin' sticks, well, I piled right in; I didn't care about it, of course, only I saw what you were doing it for, and I didn't care. Some people would think it awful vulgar, you know, but I don't care; that's the sort of man I am. Perhaps I shouldn't have liked some of my aristocratic lady friends to have seen me; but then down here, you know. Oh, I'd just as lief have given the money to the fair; I'd spent thirty dollars before in slippers and things, and then gave 'em back. I didn't want 'em, you know, only I like to see things lively; there's bound to be fun when I'm round."

However, we will not follow our good-natured friend through his long monologue of refined egotism; we merely introduced him because he showed us a variety of tricks, two of which we think worth recording in our book on amusements. On the morning after the fair, Nix and ourself, in company with the mustard-colored aristocrat, took a bath in the ocean. The aristocrat appeared in the water attired in a sumptuous bathing dress, smoking a cigar which he told us cost $800 per thousand; which, he frankly confessed, he thought too high a price for a man to pay for cigars in these times. He further stated that he relished smoking in the water very much. To our inquiry whether there was no danger of the waves putting it out, he replied by informing us that he could dive under water with a lighted cigar in his mouth without extinguishing it.

"D'you see that boat there?" he said, pointing to a small scow about a hundred and fifty yards distant. "Well, I will dive under that; you watch me, and you will see me come up." We thought there must be some hoax in the matter, and so kept a strict eye upon his movements. He swam out to the craft, gave a plunge and a kick, after the manner of ducks in a pond, disappeared, and came up on the other side, calmly puffing his weed. Never having seen or heard of the feat before, Nix and ourself were what the ancient Greeks used to call flabbergasterd. When he had enjoyed his triumph and our bewilderment for a few minutes, he showed us how it was done; simply by putting the lighted end of the cigar in his mouth just before going under water, that was all. He added: "I will show you something better if you will come up to the shooting-gallery after we get through bathing. Did you ever see a man ring the bell with his back to the target?"

Arrived at the shooting-gallery, our young friend procured a mirror which he hung on the wall opposite the target, then placing himself in front of the former, with his back to the latter, he held the pistol over his shoulder and took aim, looking at the image of the pistol in the glass as if it were the pistol itself; that is, in such a manner that the reflection of the object was covered by the reflection of the pistol; he then fired, and came within an inch of the bull's-eye.

When we got back to the hotel he amused us by setting fire to a glass of alcohol with a burning glass. He placed a silver dollar (a red cent would have answered as well) in the spirit, and then directed the rays of the sun through the burning-glass on the metal; in an instant the liquid was all ablaze.

In the afternoon this same youth called us all to enjoy a trick he had played upon the old gentleman.

The old gentleman, it appeared, was engaged in reading Macaulay's History of England, and like a methodical old gentleman, whenever he laid down the book, marked the place where he left off. On the day in question his son had abstracted his book from its accustomed place, and painted on the page following the one he was, reading a very excellent imitation of a fly. At his usual hour the old gentleman was seen to put on his spectacles, and take up the book; all those in the secret were of course on hand; presently he came to the passage on which appeared the counterfeit fly; the old gentleman shook the book, but the fly stirred not; then he blew at it; then he laid down the volume, and deliberately taking out his handkerchief, made a pass at the offending insect with that weapon, replaced his handkerchief, settled his glasses, took up the book again, but to his utter surprise the fly still remained. A light seemed now to dawn on him – the fly had got crushed between the leaves – so he essayed to remove it with his finger-nail; here his hopeful offspring could stand it no longer, and burst into a roar of laughter, in which several others joined. When the joke was explained to the worthy victim, he said: "Now, that's very good, isn't it; very good. I made sure it was a real fly, as true as you live. Look here, wife; look at this, some of Master Tom's doing; good, ain't it; as true as you live, that's a fact. Ah! Ha!"7