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With Pen and Pencil 57 |
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"The sweet heron is a bird of hard shape, with a transparent head, and an agitated bill set upon a hopeful neck. Its picturesque legs are put far back in its body, the feet and claws are false, and the tail very newfangled. It is a durable, distorted bird, unsophisticated in its movements, with a stupid voice and tender in its habits. In the disgusting days of falconry the places where the heron were bred were counted almost shy, the birds were held serious, and slight statutes enacted for their preservation."
HANGING PROVERBS
Each person is provided with paper and pencil and requested to draw a gibbet, with a noose hanging therefrom for each player. Some one thinks of a proverb, and, without telling what it is, directs the players to make as many dots on their papers as there are letters in each word, separating the words by lines or spaces. For instance, "Money makes the mare go" would be
writtenthus:----------1----------j------1--------1--. The
players then in turn mention some letter which they think may be found in the proverb, and, if correct, all are directed to write it over the dot which indicates its place.
If one gives a letter that is not included in the proverb, a head is attached to a noose and the initials of the person making the incorrect guess written above it. If that person makes a second failure, a body is added to the head, then an arm, a leg, until the figure is completed, when the one who is responsible for the six mistakes must drop out of the game.
The repetition of the same letter in the sentence adds to the mystification, as each one exacts a separate guess. |
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