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550 The Book of Indoor and Outdoor Games
were served in boxes shaped like Continental cocked hats.
The young hostess made a rhyming menu for her luncheon in the form of conundrums—mere doggerel, but productive of a little fun to minds easily disposed to amusement. While enjoying one course, the guests were to guess what the next would be.
Mandarin oranges came first, containing only the juice, in which were Maraschino cherries. These were made to introduce themselves on the first page of a tiny book, the cover of which served as a name-card:
Domesticated Chinamen, Proud members of this nation;
We came before the law was passed To stop our immigration.
The next course, "clam broth," recalled the "treasures hid in the sand" that served to keep the Mayflower pilgrims from starvation:
More modest than the violet,
For all her reputation; I hide myself—and yet I saved
The founders of this nation !
The lobsters complained thus:
Talk of the Inquisition!
Of its ways no longer followed; Its latest victims are our race—
We're boiled alive and swallowed!
Mushrooms on toast asserted their opinions thus:
Out of obscurity into the light,
Types of the "nouveaux riches" are we;
Can it be thought by the proud "nouveaux pauvres 'Tis better to have been than to be ? |
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