arouse interest or even pique curiosity.

These may be

written upon slips of paper with the answers below, and supplied to the questioners.

Persons not well acquainted would hesitate, perhaps, to betray ignorance, but in families or among near kinsmen or friends it is one of the pleasantest ways of acquiring information. On national holidays the questions might be confined to the history of the country.

ALPHABET

This game may be adapted to persons of all ages, after they have graduated from the primer.

From a box of anagram cardboard letters each player in turn draws one, naming it aloud. The first calls upon the company to mention some famous man whose name begins with that letter. To the one who can first recall such a man, the letter is given. Number two, showing his letter, may call for the name of a city the initial letter of which is like the one he holds. A third may call for something to eat, beginning with the letter drawn. Famous Artists, Authors, Musicians, Philosophers, Mountains, Rivers, Battles, Things to Wear, Qualities of Mind, Virtues, Military Leaders, Flowers, Fruits, Animals, Fish, Trees, Precious or Semi-precious Stones (of which there is one for every letter of the alphabet), Patriots, Kings, Popes, Famous Women, may all be called for.

The game may also be played progressively.

PREDICTIONS

Among intimate friends, the following form of prophesy may occasion much sport:

Each person, in confidence to the hostess, makes a prediction about some person present as to what he or

she will do during the course of the evening-all of which that lady commits to writing, to be produced just before the time of leave-taking for refutation or confirmation.

The ones whose predictions are verified receive a prize or honour of some trifling kind.

The prophesies must not be of things that would naturally happen-nor must personalities risk offending anyone, but much harmless merriment may be had where little peculiarities not generally observed are thus suggested or some teasing allusion introduced.

PERSON AND THING

That "men are but children of a larger growth" may be verified by playing "Person and Thing."

Two of the company leave the room and concert together to mystify the rest-the one by personating some well-known character, while the other assumes to be something usually associated with the personage selected-Balaam and his ass, Pyramus and the kiss through the wall, Cæsar and his famous message of "Veni, vidi, vici," for instance.

The fun principally consists in dodging the issue by misleading answers to the questions. It rather concentrates upon the person taking the part of the "ass," the "kiss," or Cæsar's famous "telegram," as a child once called the message.

Upon one occasion "Adam and the sweat of his brow" was the selection made to puzzle the company. The one who represented the "thing" assumed then that it was beneficent, a friend to all the races of men, though this particular one was the first the world had seenabove all was it the poor man's friend, though little appreciated. Spherical in shape, clear and transparent, it was

considered beautiful when seen elsewhere and in different association, but no like compliment had ever been paid to it. The solution of the mystery was not much helped when it was added that it "could not walk, but could run!"

STORY GUESSING

This is a good game for twilight times, summer evenings on the piazza, or when the room is lighted only by the glow of the fire around which the company is gathered.

Each person is asked to relate the story of some book, familiar to the reading public, or, better, one well-known to fame.

The audience listens carefully, makes no comments, and at the close of the narrative each person in succession offers his or her opinion as to the plot of what book has been described.

Every one who is willing makes the contribution of a story, and the person who guesses the designation of the greatest number of these narratives wins the game or prize.

For instance, one says, "Mine is the story of a man unconsciously good-one of the inconspicuous heroes, so noble as never to suspect his own nobility-living habitually in the atmosphere of 'that loftiest peak, humility.' His was a dependent position in the household of a man whose name is synonymous with hypocrite, but whom he idealised, until he was at length forced to see him as he was. He loved the sweetheart of the ostensible hero of the book, but expressed it only by serving them both. Money plays a conspicuous part in the book-schemed for, sinned for. It warps many natures, but the greed for it leads to the unveiling of the hypocrite by a clever plot-and our simple-minded, big

hearted, all-loving humble hero never lacks a friend and is honoured as he deserves.

"The blot on the book is a repulsive picture of some of our countrymen, but few characters are more loveworthy in all fiction than the hero of ——.”

Dickens is so familiar to nearly all readers that it will be easily seen, perhaps, that the above description belongs to Tom Pinch in the book "Martin Chuzzlewit." When it is guessed, or all have tried and failed, the next narrator tells a tale.

The game may be played, if desired, by every one's writing the story of some famous book and reading it to the company in turn. To many it is easier to write than to narrate a story.

THE GAME OF "IT"

If there be still any one who has not heard of the game of "It," he is precisely the one who may furnish fun for the rest and be mystified to their heart's content. The question must be diplomatically put, and when one ignorant of the game is discovered it is well to wait a bit before selecting him to be the first to leave the room. He is told that they in his absence will choose an object which he must discover upon his return by asking questions of each in succession, after the manner of the wellknown game of Twenty Questions. The company arrange themselves in a semi-circle, and, should there be others remaining in the room who are unacquainted with the trick, it is explained to them that the object to be guessed is the left-hand neighbour of each person questioned-always alluded to as "It."

It must be confessed that the fun is rather at the expense of the questioner.

Another may be puzzled by the company's agreeing

upon the right-hand, or opposite neighbour, the person whom they spoke to last, or their host or hostess.

The fun is increased if the company is arranged so that the questioner interrogates a lady and gentleman alternately.

DUMB ORATOR

This game is as old as the hills," but its humour is of such subtle flavour that it rarely fails to elicit the most spontaneous mirth. It belongs to the class of things that are so old as to be new to the present generation.

One person recites a poem, the more familiar the better, provided it be dramatic and suggestive of impassioned gesture. His hands are tied behind his back and he seats himself in the lap of another person, who slips his arms under those of the orator-thus supplying him with substitutes for his own pinioned ones, with which substitutes all the gestures are made. A cloak is necessary to hide the dual personality. It is clasped about the orator's neck, and covers the head and person of the gesticulaton.

Some familiar poem should be recited very seriously, while the one who makes the gestures taxes his ingenuity to go as far astray from what would be appropriate as possible. Hamlet's Soliloquy has been a successful choice.

At the words, "take arms against a sea of troubles," the orator's arms are raised in threatening attitude with clenched fists, suggestive of a prize-fight. When the speaker says "to die, to sleep" he is interrupted by a loud snore. At the "pangs of despised love," his hands are clasped to his heart and a large bandanna handkerchief applied to his eyes-and nose. At the 'spur that patient merit of the unworthy takes," his