The Handbook of Conundrums

Author of The Etiquette of To-day, and Synonyms and Antonyms.
New York George Sully and Company
Copyright, 1914, by SULLY and KLEINTEICH
Copyright, 1915, by SULLY and KLEINTEICH
All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.
This book presents a grindstone whereon the reader may whet his wits. It is of sufficient hardness to resist the coarsest metal of broad-bladed humor, and of sufficient fineness of grain to edge the best steel of fancy.
Like all grindstones, though its form is new, its ingredients are of remote origin. It has whetted many English and American blades for the battle of ideas, and is, therefore, in places, somewhat worn. There is, however, much absolutely fresh surface.
Any blade of fine temper properly ground upon it is warranted to cleave to the dividing asunder of such subtle distinctions as that between humorsome stupidity and precise wit, and that between the wit of laughter only and the wit of insight.
E. B. O.

A conundrum is a riddle in the form of a question, the answer to which involves a pun. Originally the term was applied to any quaint expression. It is thus, in its modern form, a union of the elaborated riddle and the impromptu pun.