Games/Humor Books

LETTERS TO PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW. (No answers required, thank you.) To Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, Head of the German Peace Delegation. The enthralling volume, entitled Preliminary Terms of Peace, on which your attention is being engrossed at the present moment, is said to be of the same length as A Tale of Two Cities. In other respects there is little resemblance traceable between the two works. A... more...

FIRST AID TO TOMMY ATKINS. Sir,—I visited the Military Exhibition the other day according to your instructions, my bosom glowing with patriotic ardour. If anything besides your instructions and the general appropriateness of the occasion had been necessary to make my bosom glow thus, it would have been found in the fact that I formerly served my country in a Yeomanry Regiment. I shall never forget... more...

A MANUAL OF DENOUEMENTS. “In the king’s name, Let fall your swords and daggers.”—CRITIC. A melo-drama is a theatrical dose in two or three acts, according to the strength of the constitution of the audience. Its component parts are a villain, a lover, a heroine, a comic character, and an executioner. These having simmered and macerated through all manner of events, are strained off together... more...

THE MUD LARKS. THE French are a great people; the more I see of them the more I admire them, and I have been seeing a lot of them lately. I seem to have spent the last week eating six-course dinners in cellars with grizzled sky-blue colonels, endeavouring to reply to their charming compliments in a mixture of Gaelic and CORNELIUS NEPOS. I myself had no intention of babbling these jargons; it is the... more...

No. IX.—THE DUFFER DEER-STALKING. I am in favour of Mr. BRYCE's Access to Mountains Bill, and of Crofters who may be ambitious to cultivate the fertile slopes of all the Bens in Scotland. In fact, I am in favour of anything that will, or may, interfere with the tedious toil of Deer-stalking. Mr. BRYCE's Bill, I am afraid, will do no good. People want Access to Mountains when they cannot get... more...

THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD: AN ADAPTATION. BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XVI. AVUNCULAR DEVOTIO Having literally fallen asleep from his chair to the rug, J. BUMSTEAD, Esquire, was found to have reached such an extraordinary depth in slumber, that Mr. and Mrs. SMYTHE, his landlord and landlady, who were promptly called in by Mr. DIBBLE, had at first some fear that they should never be able to drag him... more...

CHARACTERS.Miss Jenny Miss Polly }By the SistersLeamar.The Soldier Doll The Soldier Doll }By the TwoArmstrongs.Scene—A Nursery. Enter Miss Jenny and Miss Polly, who perform a blameless step-dance with an improving chorus. Oh, isn't it jolly! we've each a new dolly, And one is a Soldier, the other's a Tar! We're fully contented with what's been presented, Such good little... more...

THE UMBRELLA. A VIEW OF THE SHADY SIDE OF LIFE. A ripe pippin falling upon the head of Sir ISAAC NEWTON (a clear case of hard cider on the brain) suggested the laws of gravitation. An elderly countryman passing my window this clear bright day, attended by his faithful umbrella, suggested the following reflections. The term Umbrella comes from the Latin umbra, a shade—the whole signifying "keep... more...

TO THE FIRST BATHING-MACHINE. (After Wordsworth.) O blank new-comer! I have seen, I see thee with a start: So gentle looking a Machine, Infernal one thou art! When first the sun feels rather hot, Or even rather warm, From some dim, hibernating spot Rolls forth thy clumsy form. Perhaps thou babblest to the sea Of sunshine and of flowers; Thou bringest but a thought to me Of such bad quarter hours. I,... more...

EVICTED. (A common scandal, inviting the attention of the Government.) I was amazed the other day to hear that my landlord had called to see me. Hitherto our intercourse had been by letter and we had had heated differences on the subject of repairs. His standpoint seemed to be that landlords were responsible for repairs only to lightning conductors and weathercocks. My house possesses neither of these... more...