Conundrums.
1. He loved her. She hated him, but, woman-like, she would have him, and she was the death of him. Who was he?
2. Why is life the greatest of riddles?
3. If a church be on fire, why has the organ the smallest chance of escape?
4. Why should a sailor be the best authority as to what goes on in the moon?
5. What does a cat have that no other animal has?
6. When is a man behind the times?
7. What is the difference between a baby and a pair of boots?
8. Use me well, and I’m everybody; scratch my back, and I’m nobody.
9. What word becomes shorter by adding a syllable to it?
10. If a stupid fellow was going up for a competitive examination, why should he study the letter P?
11. Why is buttermilk like something that never happened?
12. Why is the letter O the noisiest of all the vowels?
13. Why is a Member of Parliament like a shrimp?
14. Why is a pig a paradox?
15. Why is a bad half-dollar like something said in a whisper?
16. Why do black sheep eat less than white ones?
17. Why is a barn-door fowl sitting on a gate like a halfpenny?
18. Why is a man searching for the Philosopher’s Stone like Neptune?
19. What is the difference between a much-worn fourpennypiece and a halfcrown?
20. Why is the nose placed in the middle of the face?
21. What is most like a hen stealing?
22. What is worse than “raining cats and dogs?”
23. When is butter like Irish children?
24. Why is a chronometer like thingumbob?
25. Of what color is grass when covered with snow?
26. Name in two letters the destiny of all earthly things?
27. What is even better than presence of mind in a railway accident?
28. What word contains all the vowels in due order?
29. Why is a caterpillar like a hot roll?
30. What is that which occurs twice in a moment, once in a minute, and not once in a thousand years?
31. What is that which will give a cold, cure a cold, and pay the doctor’s bill?
32. What is that which is neither flesh nor bone, yet has four fingers and a thumb?
33. What is the difference between a rhododendron and a cold apple-dumpling?
34. Why has man more hair than woman?
35. What is that which no one wishes to have, yet no one cares to lose?
36. Why is the letter G like the sun?
37. Why is the letter D like a wedding-ring?
38. What sweetens the cup of life, yet, divested of its end, embitters the most grateful draught?
39. Why should ladies not learn French?
40. Which tree is most suggestive of kissing?
41. What act of folly does a washerwoman commit?
42. Why should a cabman be brave?
43. What is the most difficult surgical operation?
44. Why is it difficult to flirt on board the P. and O. steamers?
45. What letter made Queen Bess mind her P’s and Q’s?
46. Why is it an insult to a cock-sparrow to mistake him for a pheasant?
47. What is that from which the whole may be taken, and yet some will remain?
48. Why is blind-man’s buff like sympathy?
49. When may a man be said to have four hands?
50. Why is it easy to break into an old man’s house?
51. Why should you not go to London by the 12.50 train?
52. Why should the male sex avoid the letter A?
53. When does a man sneeze three times?
54. What relation is the doormat to the scraper?
55. Why does a piebald pony never pay toll?
56. When does a steamboat captain say that he is what he is not?
57. Why is the letter S like a sewing-machine?
58. Why need France never fear an inundation?
59. What is the difference between a cow and a rickety chair?
60. What flower most resembles a bull’s mouth?
61. What does a stone become in the water?
62. If the alphabet were invited out to dine, what time would U, V, W, X, Y, and Z go?
63. Why are sailors bad horsemen?
64. When was beef-tea first introduced into England?
65. What letter is the pleasantest to a deaf woman?
66. Why are ladies like churches?
67. When is love a deformity?
68. Why is a mouse like hay?
69. Why is a madman equal to two men?
70. Why are good resolutions like ladies fainting in church?
71. Which is the merriest letter in the alphabet?
72. Why is a horse like the letter O?
73. What is the difference between a bankrupt and a feather-bed?
74. What is that word of five letters from which, if you take away two, only one remains?
75. Why is the letter B like a fire?
76. What word is pronounced quicker by adding a syllable to it?
77. Which animal travels with the most, and which with the least, luggage?
78. How many sticks go to the building of a crow’s-nest?
79. Which is the best-behaved food, cake or wine?
80. Which member of Congress wears the largest hat?
81. Why are bakers the most self-denying people?
82. Which of the constellations reminds you of an empty fireplace?
83. What relation is that child to its own father who is not its own father’s own son?
84. When does a pig become landed property?
85. Which is the heavier, the full or the new moon?
86. What is the best way to make a coat last?
87. Why is an alligator the most deceitful of animals?
88. Why are fowls the most profitable of live stock?
89. What is that which comes with a coach, goes with a coach, is of no use whatever to the coach, and yet the coach can’t go without it?
90. If your uncle’s sister is not your aunt, what relation is she to you?
91. Why does a duck put its head under water?
92. Why does it take it out again?
93. What vegetable products are the most important in history?
94. Why is the letter W like a maid of honor?
95. What letter is always invisible, yet never out of sight?
96. What is an old lady in the middle of a river like?
97. Why are E and I the happiest of the vowels?
98. Why is the letter F like a cow’s tail?
99. On which side of a pitcher is the handle?
100. What is higher and handsomer when the head is off?
101. Why is a pig in a parlor like a house on fire?
102. What is the keynote to good breeding?
103. What is the best thing to make in a hurry?
104. What Queen Mary, of England, had before, poor thing! what King William had behind, poor thing! what Queen Anne never had at all, poor thing!
105. What do you add to nine in order to make it three less?
106. Why is a tallow-chandler like a villain exposed?
107. What is it that walks with its head downwards?
108. Why could not Lord Beaconsfield insure his life?
109. Why is a lame dog like a schoolboy adding six and seven together?
110. Why is the Brooklyn Bridge like merit?
111. What we all require, what we all give, what we occasionally ask for, yet very seldom take?
112. A man remarks, looking at a portrait, “Uncles and brothers have I none, but that man’s father is my father’s son.” What relation is the original of the portrait to the speaker?
113.
Formed long ago, yet made to-day;
Employed while others sleep;
What few would wish to give away,
Yet no one cares to keep?
114. What did Adam first plant in the Garden of Eden?
115. Four men went to sea on a marble slab. The first had no eyes, the second had no hands, the third had no legs, and the fourth was naked. The first saw a bird, the second shot it, the third ran and picked it up, and the fourth put it in his pocket. What is that?
116. What is Majesty, deprived of its externals?
117. If you saw an egg on a music-stool, what great poem would it remind you of?
118.
Can you tell me why
A hypocrite’s eye
Could better descry
Than you or I
On how many toes
A pussy-cat goes?
119. How would you make a thin man fat?
120. What is the difference between a young maid of sixteen and an old maid of sixty?
121. When was fruit known to use bad language?
122. If a man gets up on a donkey, where should he get down?
123. Why were Adam and Eve a grammatical anomaly?
124. What is lengthened by being cut at both ends?
125. Why are men like gooseberries?
126. Why should you never write a secret with a quill-pen?
127. “I am what I am; I am not what I follow. If I were what I follow, I should not be what I am.” What is it?
128. Which is the most cautious of birds?
129. Which is the strongest day of the week?
130. If a pig wanted to build himself a house, how would he set about it?
131. Why does a donkey prefer thistles to oats?
132. Where can you always find sympathy?
133. What is the difference between a lady and a looking-glass?
134. Why need a man never starve in the desert?
135. Why are oysters the best food for dyspeptic people?
136.
If by chance a man falls
From the top of St. Paul’s,
What does he fall against?
137. What was Joan of Arc made of?
138. Why is a kitten biting her own tail like a good manager?
139. Why is the figure 9 like a peacock?
140. Why did Adam bite the apple when Eve gave it to him?
141. Which are the most contented birds?
142. What animals have only one leg between them?