The Band.
Guests are told that the object of the game is for each one to pantomime the action of the instrument assigned him, in such a realistic way that the others cannot help but guess what it is. Each performer is to continue his pantomiming until the audience makes the correct guess. The hostess then asks the first performer to step into another room with her so that she can tell him what his instrument is, and help him with the action of it. She assigns him something easy like a cornet, telling him at the same time however that his part is really a blind to keep the group from getting suspicious about any hoax. He goes back into the room, pantomimes the action of a cornet, and immediately the audience guesses “Cornet,” and probably thinks “Oh what a stupid game!”
The hostess carefully picks her next performer, takes him into the next room, and tells him his part. He is to play the accordion, and, according to rule, is to keep it up until the audience makes a correct guess as to his instrument. In the meantime, the man who played the cornet is carrying out the instructions given him by his hostess, and is telling the group that the next man will play an accordion, but that they are all to profess great ignorance and to guess everything under the sun but an accordion—a piano, a piccolo, drum, flute, violin, trombone, anything but an accordion. Inevitably the impatient question will come from the performer, “Well! What is it that I’m playing?” and the group will sweetly answer, “The part of the goat!”