The Art of Entertaining Part 30

The Traveller's Tour is interesting. One of the party announces himself as the traveller. He is given an empty bag, and counters, with numbers on, are distributed amongst the players. Thus if twelve persons are playing the numbers must count up to twelve,--a set of ones to be given to one, twos to two, and so on. Then the traveller asks for information about the places to which he is going. The first person gives it if he can; if not, the second, and so on. If the traveller considers it correct information or worthy of notice he takes from the person one of his counters as a pledge of the obligation he is under to him. The next person in order takes up the next question, and so on. After the traveller reaches his destination he empties his bag and sees to whom he has been indebted for the greatest amount of information. He then makes him the next traveller.

Of course this opens the door for all sorts of witty rejoinders, according as the players choose to exaggerate the claims of certain hotels, and to invent hits at certain watering-places.

The rhyming game is amusing. "I have a word that rhymes with game."

_Interlocutor._--"Is it something statesmen crave?"

_Speaker._--"No, it is not fame."

_Interlocutor._--"Is it something that goes halt?"

_Speaker._--"No, it is not lame."

_Interlocutor._--"Is it something tigers need?"

_Speaker._--"No, it is not to tame."

_Interlocutor._--"Is it something we all would like?"

_Speaker._--"No, it is not a good name."

_Interlocutor._--"Is it to shoot at duck?"

_Speaker._--"Yes, and that duck to maim." Such words as "nut,"

"thing," "fall," etc., which rhyme easily, are good choices. The two who play it must be quick-witted.

The game of Crambo, in which each player has to write a noun on one piece of paper, and a question on another, is curious. As, for instance, the drawer gets the word "Africa" and the question "Have you an invitation to my wedding?" He must write a poem in which he answers the question and brings in the other word.

The game of Preferences has had a long and successful career. It is a very good addition to the furniture of a country parlour to possess a blank-book which is left lying on the table, in which each guest should be asked to write out answers to the following questions:

Who is your favourite hero in history?

Who is your favourite heroine?

Who is your favourite king?

Who is your favourite queen?

What is your favourite Christian name for a man?

What is your favourite Christian name for a woman? etc.

The game of Authors, especially when created by the persons who wish to play it, is very interesting. The game can be bought and is a very common one, as perhaps every one knows, but it can be rendered uncommon by the preparation of the cards among the members of the family. There are sixty-four cards to be prepared, each bearing the name of a favourite author and any three of his works. The entire set is numbered from one to sixty-four. Any four cards containing the name and works of the same author form a book.

Or the names of kings and queens and the learned men of their reigns may be used, instead of authors; it is a very good way to study history. The popes can be utilized, with their attendant great men, and after playing the game for a season one has no difficulty in fixing the environment of the history of an epoch.

As the numbers affixed to the cards may be purely arbitrary, the count at the end will fluctuate with great impartiality. The d.i.c.kens cards may count but one, while Tupper will be named sixteen. Carlyle will only count two, while Artemas Ward will be sixty. King Henry VIII., who set no small store by himself, may be No. I in the kingly game, while Edward IV. will be allowed a higher numeral than he was allotted in life.

Now we come to a game which interests old and young. None are so apathetic but they relish a peep behind the dark curtain. The apple-paring in the fire, the roasted chestnut and the raisin, the fire-back and the stars, have been interrogated since time began. The pack of cards, the teacup, the dream-book, the board with mystic numbers, the Bible and key, have been consulted from time immemorial.

The makers of games have given in their statistics, and they declare there are no games so popular as those which foretell the future.

Now this tampering with gruesome things which may lead to bad dreams is not recommended, but so long as it is done for fun and an evening's amus.e.m.e.nt it is not at all dangerous. The riches which are hidden in a pack of fortune-telling cards are very comforting while they last.

They are endless, they are not taxed, they have few really trying responsibilities attached, they bring no beggars. They buy all we want, they are gained without headache or backache, they are inherited without stain, and lost without regret. Of what other fortune can we say so much?

Who is not glad to find a four-leaved clover, to see the moon over his right shoulder, to have a black cat come to the house? She is sure to bring good fortune!

The French have, however, tabularized fortune-telling for us. Their peculiar ability in arranging ceremonials and _fetes_, and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy, show that they might be able to foresee events. Their ingenuity, in all technical contrivances, is an additional testimony in the right direction, and we are not surprised that they have here, as is their wont, given us the practical help which we need in fortune-telling.

Mademoiselle Lenormand, the sorceress who foretold Napoleon's greatness and to many of the great people of France their downfall and misfortunes, has left us thirty-six cards in which we can read the decrees of fate. Lenormand was a clever sybil. She knew how to mix things, and throw in the inevitable bad and the possible good so as at least to amuse those who consulted her.

In this game, which can be bought at any bookstore, the _cavalier_, for instance, is a messenger of good fortune, the clover leaf a harbinger of good news, but if surrounded by clouds it indicates great pain, but if No. 2 lies near No. 26 or 28 the pain will be of short duration, and so on.

Thus Mlle. Lenormand tells fortunes still, although she has gone to the land of certainty, and has herself found out whether her symbols and emblems and her combinations really did draw aside the curtain of the future with invisible strings. Amateur sybils playing this game can be sure that they add to the art of entertaining.

The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the grounds around the cup, is used for divination by the old crone in an English farmhouse, while the Spanish gypsy uses chocolate grounds for the same purpose. That most interesting of tragic sybils, Norna of the Fitful Head, used molten lead.

Cards from the earliest antiquity have been used to tell fortunes.

Fortuna, courted by all nations, was in Greek Tyche, or the G.o.ddess of chance. She differed from Destiny, or Fate, in so far as that she worked without law, giving or taking at her own good pleasure. Her symbols were those of mutability, a ball, a wheel, a pair of wings, a rudder. The Romans affirmed that when she entered their city she threw off her wings and shoes, determined to live with them forever. She seems to have thought better of it, however. She was the sister of the Parcae, or Fates, those three who spin the thread of life, measure it, and cut it off. The power to tell fortunes by the hand is easily learned from Desbarolles' book, is a very popular accomplishment, and never fails to amuse the company and interest the individual.

It must not be made, however, of too much importance. It never amuses people to be warned that they may expect an early and violent death.

Then comes Merelles, or Blind Men's Morris, which can be played on a board or on the ground, but which now finds itself reduced to a parlour game. This takes two players. American Bagatelle can be played alone or with an antagonist. Chinese puzzles, which are infinitely amusing, and all the great family of the Sphinx, known as puzzles, are of infinite service to the retired, the invalid, and weary people for whom the active business of life is at an end.

We may describe one of these games as an example. It is called The Blind Abbot and his Monks. It is played with counters. Arrange eight external cells of a square so that there may be always nine in each row, though the whole number may vary from eighteen to thirty-six. A convent in which there were nine cells was occupied by a blind abbot and twenty-four monks, the abbot lodging in the centre cell and the monks in the side cells, three in each, giving a row of nine persons on each side of the building. The abbot suspecting the fidelity of his brethren often went out at night and counted them. When he found nine in each row, the old man counted his beads, said an _Ave_, and went to bed contented. The monks, taking advantage of his failing sight, contrived to deceive him, so that four could go out at night, yet have nine in a row. How did they do it?

The next night, emboldened by success, the monks returned with four visitors, and then arranged them nine in a row. The next night they brought in four more belated brethren, and again arranged them nine in a row, and again four more. Finally, when the twelve clandestine monks had departed, and six monks with them, the remainder deceived the abbot again by presenting a row of nine. Try it with the counters, and see how they so abused the privileges of conventual seclusion!

Then try quibbles: "How can I get the wine out of a bottle if I have no corkscrew and must not break the gla.s.s or make a hole in it or the cork?"

The _raconteur_, or story-teller, is a potent force. Any one who can memorize the stories of Grimm, or Hans Christian Anderson, or Browning's "Pied Piper," or Ouida's "Dog of Flanders," or Dr. Holmes'

delightful "Punch Bowl," and tell these in a natural sort of way is a blessing. But this talent should never be abused. The man who, in cold blood, fires off a long poetical quotation at a dinner, or makes a speech when he is not asked, in defiance of the goose-flesh which is creeping down his neighbours' backs, is a traitor to honour and religion, and should be dragged to execution with his back to the horses, like a Nihilist. It is only when these extempore talents can be used without alarming people that they are useful or endurable.

Perhaps we might make our Christmas Holidays a little more gay. There are old English and German customs beyond the mistletoe, and the tree, and the rather faded legend of Santa Claus. There are worlds of legendary lore. We might bring back the Leprechaun, the little fairy-man in red, who if you catch him will make you happy forever after, and who has such a strange relations.h.i.+p to humanity that at birth and death the Leprechaun must be tended by a mortal. To follow up the Banshee and the Brownie, to light the Yule log, to invoke the Lord of Misrule, above all to bring back the waits or singing-boys who come under the window with an old carol, and the universal study of symbolism,--all this is useful at Christmastide, when the art of entertaining is enn.o.bled by the song "Glory to G.o.d in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."

The supper-table has unfortunately fallen into desuetude, probably on account of our exceedingly late dinners. We sup out, we sup at a ball, but rarely have that informal and delightful meal which once wound up every evening.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, in her delightful letters, talks about the "Whisk, and the Quadrille parties, with a light supper," which amused the ladies of her day. We still have the "Whisk," but what has become of _lansquenet_, quadrille ba.s.set, piquet, those pretty and courtly games?

Whist! Who shall pretend to describe its attractions? What a relief to the tired man of affairs, to the woman who has no longer any part in the pageant of society! What pleasure in its regulating, s.h.i.+fting fortunes. We have seen, in its parody on life, that holding the best cards, even the highest ones, does not always give us the game. We have noticed that with a poor hand, somebody wins fame, success, and happiness. We have all felt the injustice of the long suit, which has baffled our best endeavours. We play our own experience over again, with its faithless kings and queens. The knave is apt to trip us up, on the green cloth as on the street.

So long as cards do not lead to gambling, they are innocent enough.

The great pa.s.sion for gambling is behind the game of boaston, played appropriately for beans. We all like to acc.u.mulate, to believe that we are fortune's favourite. What matter if it be only a few more beans than one's neighbour?

That is a poorly furnished parlour which has not a chess table in one corner, a whist table properly stocked, and a little solitaire table for Grandma. Cribbage and backgammon boards, cards of every variety, bezique counters and packs, and the red and white champions for the hard-fought battle-field of chess, should be at hand.

Playing cards made their way through Arabia from India to Europe, where they first arrived about the year 1370. They carried with them the two rival arts, engraving and painting. They were the _avants couriers_ of engraving on wood and metal, and of the art of printing.

Cards, begun as the luxuries of kings and queens, became the necessity of the gambler, the solace of all who like games. They have been one of the worst curses and one of the greatest blessings of poor human nature.