Part 1

[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text is surrounded by _underscores_.]

HOME ENTERTAINING

What To Do and How To Do It

HOME ENTERTAINING

AMUSEMENTS FOR EVERY ONE

EDITED BY WILLIAM E. CHENERY

BOSTON LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

PUBLISHED, AUGUST, 1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. _All Rights Reserved_ HOME ENTERTAINING

Norwood Press Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE

THIS collection of games, tricks, and pastimes is the result of many years’ effort to find the most clever and practical diversions and entertainments suitable for the home. Each trick has been tested by the editor, and each sport introduced has received most careful consideration in regard to ease of production, as well as the enjoyment to be gained from it.

As no refined person of any age can find amusement in coarseness, great care has been exercised in presenting only such diversions as are to be welcomed in a refined home circle. The necessity for elaborate apparatus has also been avoided, so that with dullness, difficulty, expense, and ill-taste eliminated, it is felt that this collection will supply a lack which has always existed, as the many who have sought in vain for a bright, safe, and up-to-date book of really feasible entertainments will appreciate.

While this book contains much that is original, especially in descriptive matter and ways of presentation, it has of course been necessary to draw freely from the accumulated mass of tricks and “sells” that have in some form or other come down from unknown times, and are recognized as being the common property of any who take pains to learn them. As a matter of courtesy, due acknowledgement is hereby made to all who have preceded me in this line of work.

A word of general advice to the amateur entertainer may be in order. Never tell the company what you are about to do, unless the very nature of a trick demands that its outcome be stated in advance. In this case, do it as guardedly as possible. If you state that you are to perform a certain trick, you thereby greatly increase the chance of detection, as the spectators will know what to look for, and in that way will more readily arrive at the true method of bringing about the results. Do not allow yourself to be persuaded into performing a trick twice in an evening. With the element of surprise gone, the best performance loses much of its effect. Finally, remember that a great deal depends upon the personality of the entertainer. An easy flow of pleasantries, which may or may not have to do with what is being performed, adds to the entertainment of the company, and at the same time helps much in diverting the attention of your friends from too close a scrutiny of your proceedings.

WILLIAM E. CHENERY.

FRAMINGHAM, MASS., May, 1912.

CONTENTS

PAGE The Magnetic Ring 1 To Tell the Hour 2 The Spirit Calculator 3 The Square of Sixteen Numbers 5 The Square of Nine Digits 5 Making a Bird Enter a Cage 6 The Handkerchief Snake 6 To Pass Your Body Through a Postal Card 7 Silhouettes 8 Gymnastics for the Tongue 9 The Passenger to Boulogne 9 Mind-reading 10 Blowing a Card on Twine 12 Naming a Card 12 A Horse Race 14 A Jam-eating Contest 15 A Potato Race 15 Guessing Contests 16 A Phonograph Concert 17 To Lift Fifteen Matches with One 18 A Donkey Party 19 The Dwarf Exhibit 19 Stick-and-Pea Amusement 22 An Introduction to the Doll Family 22 Second Sight 24 The Blind Feeding the Blind 25 An Amateur Vaudeville 25 The Elusive Coin 25 Novel Paper-cutting 26 The Mysterious Remainder 27 Home Field-Sports 29 (a) One-yard Dash 29 (b) Tug of War 29 (c) Standing High Jump 29 (d) Hurdle Race 29 (e) Drinking Race 30 (f) Bun Race 30 (g) Cracker-eating Contest 30 (h) Rainy-Day Race 30 The Gentlemen Nurse-Maids 31 New Year’s Resolutions for Others 32 Can You Draw a Watch-face? 33 The Endless Thread 34 The Telltale Glass 35 Pairing Ten Half-dimes 37 Deceptive Heights 37 (a) Of a Hat 37 (b) Of a Barrel 37 Slang 38 Observation Contest 39 The Bargain-counter Game 39 The “Thirty-five” Trick 41 An Ink Shock 42 Reading from Folded Papers 42 Blind Man’s Buff with Dominoes 43 “My Aunt Has Arrived from Paris” 44 Surprising Strength 45 Card-passing Contest 46 A Cobweb Tangle 47 A Novel Masquerade 47 Hit the Bag 48 A Pretended Illusion 49 Dancing Fairies 49 Describing a Lady’s Costume 50 The Wonderful Hat 51 Mirror-Drawing 51 The Dancing Skeleton 53 Pitching Cards at a Hat 54 Peanut Guessing 54 Peanut Shelling 54 Peanut Rolling 55 The Peanut Hunt 55 Progressive Peanut Party 55 Your Friends in Black 57

GAMES Packing the Trunk 59 Blowing Ping-pong Balls 60 Doing the Impossible 60 The Game of “It” 61 The Game of “Turtle” 63 The Game of “Empty Hands” 64 Simon Says 65 Passing Bean-bags 66 Buzz 67 Can You Laugh? 68 An Optical Game 68 Blowing the Feather 69 Throwing the Handkerchief 70 Going to Jerusalem 71 Find the Whistle 71 The All-around Story Game 72 An Obstacle Game 72 Impudence 73 Rolling Chase-ball 74

TRICKS The Sharpers Outwitted 76 The Raised Hand 78 Unconscious Movements 78 The Broken Match Restored 79 The Cent and the Hole 80 Mysterious Reading 81 The Baffling Card 83 A Watch Trick 83 Silk from Paper 84 The Obedient Ball 86 Tricks with a Pen 87 The Dice and Cup 88 The Surprising Paper Bands 89 Napkin-ring Trick 89 The Magical Cups of Tin 90 The Elusive Cork 92 The Three Pennies 92 A Lesson in Gravity 93 The Tantalizing Half-dollar 93 Drawing Matches to Win 94 Eye-errors and Ghosts 96 The Detaining Hand-clasp 98 The Pictorial Nail 99 Cane Trick 99

PANTOMIMES General Directions 101 Aerial Figures 103 Silhouettes 105 Shadow Pictures 106 Shadow Show 106

CARD TRICKS Calling the Cards 110 The Odd Card 114 Naming the Cards 116 A Diamond Ace of Hearts 117 A Three-card Trick 118 Detection by Smell 119 Naming a Drawn Card 121 Grouping the Kings 123 Detecting a Turned Card 124 Telling the Number of Transposed Cards 124 The Three Packets 127 A Card Found at the Second Guess 127 Pocketing a Chosen Card 128 To Pick Out a Card Thought Of 131 The Siamese Aces 133 Detection of a Drawn Card by Color 136 Mathematical Detection of Card 137 Passing a Card to Top of Pack 138 The Trick of “Thirty-one” 140

SOAP-BUBBLES Blowing Soap-bubbles 142 Fantastic Soap-bubbles 143 Rebounding Bubbles 145

FORFEITS 146

HALLOWE’EN Decorations 149 Invitations 150 Receiving Guests 150 The Heads of Bluebeard’s Wives 152 The Severed Head 153 Ghost Stories 154 The Unearthly Look 154 Luminous Writing 155 The Floating Candle 155 Ornamented Apples 156 Finding the Candle 156 The Full Moon 156 Cabinet Manifestations 157 Spirit Pictures 157 Parlor Magic 159 The Demon Bell 161 The Animated Skull 161 The Perilous Ring 162 Nose and Goggle Party 162 Jack-o’-lanterns 163 The Surprising Candle 163

Home Entertaining

What To Do and How To Do It

=The Magnetic Ring.= Take a gold ring,—the more massive the better. Attach the ring to a silk thread about twelve inches long; fasten the other end of the thread around the nail-joint of your right forefinger, and let the ring hang about half an inch above the surface of the table, on which you rest your elbow to steady your hand. Hold your finger horizontally, with the thumb thrown back as far as possible from the rest of the hand.

If there be nothing on the table, the ring will soon become stationary. Then place some silver (say three half-dollars) immediately below it, when the ring will begin to oscillate backwards and forwards, to you and from you. Now bring your thumb in contact with your forefinger (or else suspend the ring from your thumb), and the oscillations will become transverse to their former swing. Or this may be effected by making a lady take hold of your disengaged hand. When the transverse motion is fairly established, let a gentleman take hold of the lady’s disengaged hand, and the ring will change back to its former course. These effects are produced by the aid of animal magnetic currents given forth by the hands of the experimenters.

=To Tell the Hour of the Day or Night by a Suspended Quarter.= Sling a quarter or a dime at the end of a piece of thread by means of a loop; then, resting your elbow upon a table, hold the other end of the thread between your forefinger and thumb, and thus suspend the coin in an empty goblet. Observe, your hand must be perfectly steady; and if you find it difficult to keep it in an immovable posture, it is useless to attempt the experiment. Premising that the quarter is properly suspended, you will find that, when it has recovered its equilibrium, it will for a moment be stationary; it will then, of its own accord and without the least agency from the person holding it, assume the action of a pendulum, vibrating from side to side of the glass, and after a few seconds will strike the hour nearest to the time of day. It is necessary to observe that the thread should lie over the pulse of the thumb, and this may in some measure account for the vibration of the quarter, but to what cause its striking the precise hour is to be traced remains unexplained; for it is no less astonishing than true that when it has struck the proper number its vibration ceases, it acquires a kind of rotary motion and finally becomes stationary as before.

=The Spirit Calculator.= A piece of paper and a pencil are handed to the audience, with a request that four different persons will each write down a row of four figures, one under the other, to form an addition sum. The paper is then given to a fifth person to add up the figures, but before he can call out the result the performer writes it down on a blackboard.

The secret lies in the fact that the performer is in possession of a piece of paper exactly the same in every detail as that handed to the audience, on which, previous to the entertainment, he has had four rows of figures written in different handwritings. In the course of the entertainment, all is fair and aboveboard until it comes to adding up the sum, when the performer, in the act of giving the paper to the fifth person, changes it for that of his own, with the total of which he is already acquainted. He has now only to run to the stage and write down the answer on the blackboard.

A more startling conclusion than the prosaic one above mentioned may be obtained by the use of sympathetic ink, composed of sulphuric acid and water, one part of the former to three of the latter. Writing done with this ink will be invisible until heat be applied, which will bring out the characters in jet black.

The performer, then, being provided with a piece of paper bearing the answer written with the invisible ink, gives a plate containing a little alcohol to the person adding up the sum, and asks him to set fire to the alcohol, first, however, taking careful note of the total. The prepared piece of paper is now held over the flames caused by igniting the alcohol on the plate, when the heat will bring out the answer, which is proved to be correct. The greatest care should always be exercised in producing any kind of flame.

=The Square of Sixteen Numbers.= Arrange the numbers from 1 to 16 in a square, so that the sum of the figures in any row, vertical, horizontal, or diagonal, will be 34.

16 3 2 13 5 10 11 8 9 6 7 12 4 15 14 1

=The Square of Nine Digits.= How may nine digits be arranged in a rectangular form so that the sum of any row, whether horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, shall equal 15?

4 9 2 3 5 7 8 1 6

=Making a Bird Enter a Cage.= Draw upon a sheet of paper an empty bird-cage and then very near the cage at the right draw a bird. The problem is to make this bird enter the cage.

Place a visiting-card between the two figures, holding the card perpendicularly on the paper. Press the end of your nose on the border of the card and look at the cage and the bird. You will thus see the cage with your left eye and the bird with your right. But in a moment the bird will seem to move, then enter the cage.

=The Handkerchief Snake.= A fine black-silk thread is stretched across the stage from one side to the other, the ends being in the hands of two assistants. Having obtained the loan of a handkerchief, the performer, standing behind the thread, takes it diagonally by two corners and twists it up rope fashion. He then ties three knots in it, one a little below the centre, one a little above the centre, and the third at one end. While this is being done, the assistants raise the thread, around which the last knot, forming the head of a snake, is actually tied; but owing to the thread being invisible, this will pass unobserved.

Having made the last knot, the performer drops the handkerchief on the floor, when its imitation of a live snake will depend entirely on the adroit manner in which the assistants manipulate the thread.

Finally, it should be made to jump into the hand of the performer, who should at once hand it with the knots still tied to the owner. This is managed by the assistant at one end dropping the thread and the other one pulling it clear of the handkerchief. Other tricks may be invented.

=To Pass your Body through a Postal Card.= Fold the card once lengthwise in the middle so that there will be two equal flaps. Now commence at the folded edge and cut almost to the straight edge, double thickness, then commence at the straight edge and cut almost to the folded edge, and so on alternately, until there have been about twenty-five or thirty cuts made, leaving a very small margin between each cut. Then cut each loop on the folded edge except the two outside loops, and open.

=Silhouettes.= Choose a part of the room where there is a clear wall space. Attach a piece of silhouette paper to the wall with thumb tacks or pins (or against a broad board if you fear that the tacks may injure the wall), the white side of the paper being out.

A lamp, or better a candle, having been placed so that it will throw a strong light on the sheet of paper, turn off all the other lights in the room. Each one then takes his place between the lamp and the wall so that a clear shadow of his profile may be thrown on the paper. Now draw a firm, strong line carefully around this shadow. The sitter must sit perfectly still, during the drawing. If possible have a head-rest, the shadow of which must not be seen upon the paper. Having thus outlined the shadow, take the paper from the wall and cut out the silhouette neatly or pass it to another to do the same.

=Gymnastics for the Tongue.= Say these several times as rapidly and distinctly as you can: “She sells sea shells at the sea shore,” and these also: “John sawed six sleek, slim, slender saplings.” “There was an old woman and she was a thistle sifter. She had a sieve of sifted thistles, and a sieve of unsifted thistles, and she was a thistle sifter.” “Mixed biscuits.” “Gig whip.” “Six thick thistle sticks.” “She stood at the door welcoming him in.” “Shoes and socks shock Susan.”

=The Passenger to Boulogne.= The requirements for this touching picture are an orange, a pocket-handkerchief or soft table-napkin, and a wine-glass. The orange is first prepared by cutting in the rind with a pen-knife the best ears, nose, and mouth which the skill of the artist can compass, a couple of raisins supplying the place of eyes. A pocket-handkerchief is stretched lightly over the glass, and the prepared orange laid thereon.

The pocket-handkerchief is then moved gently backwards and forwards over the top of the glass, imparting to the orange a rolling motion, and affording a laughable but striking caricature of the agonies of a sea-sick Channel passenger.

The performance terminates by draping the pocket-handkerchief hood-fashion over the supposed head, and squeezing the orange into the glass. The last scene, however, is disagreeably realistic.

=Mind-Reading.= Before appearing to the audience, fasten a fine black thread to the thumb (or any part desired). The other end is retained by an assistant seated back to the audience, and in back from the performer, so that the thread will not be noticed. While the performer is promising a mind-reading exhibition, the assistant will have time to make the thread tight, and it must be kept so during the performance. Show a small blackboard, or some other similar arrangement, that can be held in one arm, and ask any one to secretly suggest figures, which are put down in columns, for the purpose of addition. The figures must be large enough for every one to see, and it is advisable not to have too many, as experience will show it takes too long for the trick. The performer then mentally adds the right column of figures, after which he secretly pulls the thread, fastened to the thumb, as many times as necessary to make the correct number. The assistant counts the little jerks, and then announces the number, which proves to be the correct number to set down. This is continued until all the figures are added. If the sum of a column is a “zero” no pull should be made. The details must be plainly understood between the performer and assistant, and with a little ingenuity the trick will seem quite puzzling.

=Blowing a Card on Twine.= Procure some of the nicest twine, that is hard, smooth, and very slippery, and cut into lengths of fifteen or twenty feet, according to room available, fastening both ends to something stationary. The number of these lines may be optional, but not less than two. On each line, near the end, place a card four inches square, with a hole exactly in the centre, about three times the diameter of the twine. Care must be taken that the hole is large enough to allow the card to move properly but not too freely. At a given signal the card is blown the length of the line. The one arriving at the end first, wins.