RIDDLES AND CONUNDRUMS
1. Washerwoman.
2.
“Call me an uncle, then you speak me fair,
Call me an uncle-an uncle if you dare!”
3. Pluck the goose.
4. Also.
5. A lawsuit.
6. Because they are bargains.
7. A pair of shoes.
8. Because whenever he goes out he can put his portmanteaux (Portman toes) into his boots.
9. FIVE.
10. Rail—liar.
11. Because it slopes with a flap!
12. In California they eat all the peaches they can, and can all they can’t!
13. The utmost effort ever made by a piebald (or by any) horse at a high jump is four feet from the ground!
14. Insatiate (in—sat—I—ate).
The clever couplet—
Under my first my second stood.
That’s your riddle: mine’s as good!
was intended to point out that the enigma
In my first my second sat,
Then my third and fourth I ate
was understood, and to frame at the same time a fresh one of similar sort.
15. A gardener minds his peas, a billiard-marker his cues, a precise man his p’s and q’s, and a verger his keys and pews.
16. A man with one eye can see more than a man with two, for in addition to all else he can see the other man’s two eyes, which can only see his one.
17. When you ask a policeman what o’clock it is, you are like the Viceroy of India, because you are as king for the time.
18. “What does Y E S spell?” is the question to which “yes” is the only possible reply.
19. An umbrella.
20. London for many years was a wonderful place for sound, for you could laugh at 5 p.m. at Waterloo Junction, and by walking briskly across the river be in time for the late Echo at Charing Cross.
21. Because it may be smelt!
22. The full reading of “1s. 6d. me a bloater” is “Bob Tanner sent me a bloater.”
Note.—If any solver should ask, “But where is the ‘sent’?” we reply, “The scent was in the bloater!”
23. The solution of the prime conundrum “Why is a moth flying round a candle like a garden gate?” is—Because if it keeps on it singes its wings (its hinges it swings).
24. (Twe)lve—twe(nty) = twenty.
25. Because it would be my newt (minute).
26. The steps by which, in paying my debt to a lawyer, a threepenny piece swells to the needed six and eightpence are these:—
Three pence is one and two pence;
One and two pence is fourteen pence;
Fourteen pence is six and eight pence!
27. When the Vickers Maxim (vicar smacks him).
28. Children should go to bed soon after tea because when “t” is taken away night is nigh.
29. Scottish may be lighter than Irish men, for while Irishmen may be men of Cork, Scotsmen may be men of Ayr.
30. Because barbers do not cut hair any longer!
31. Colenso.
32. This is Archbishop Whately’s riddle, and a solution, suggested long after his offer of £50 had expired:—
When from the Ark’s capacious round
Mankind came forth in pairs,
Who was it that first heard the sound
Of boots upon the stairs?
To him who cons the matter o’er,
A little thought reveals,
He heard it first who went before
Two pairs of soles and eels!
33. If Moses was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he was the daughter of Pharaoh’s son.
34. The word of three syllables which represents woman or man alternately by three contractions is heroine—hero—her—he.
35. Solution to-morrow!
36. Wholesome.
37. They were jolly well tired!
38. The stocks.
39. Because it makes a far—thing present.
40. If I were in the sun, and you were out of it, it would be a sin.
41. COLD.
42. Take off—ice.
43. Enduring.
44. Uncross the “t” of “a foot,” and it becomes “a fool.”
45. A rabbit can run into a square wood with sides that each measures a mile, keeping always in a straight line, until it reaches the middle of the wood, when it must begin to run out of it!
46. To-morrow.
47. Scar—bo—rough.
48.
Though I in time for lunch may be,
U cannot come till after T.
49. A wig.
50. Because we cannot be wed without it.
51. A spit.
52. Wit (double you—I—tea).
53. Holding up your hand you will see what you never have seen, never can see, and never will see—namely, the little finger as long as the finger next to it!
54. The Emperor of Russia issues manifestoes. An ill-shod beggar manifests toes without his shoes!
55. To show Walsham How a good bishop is made.
56. There was certainly a tribe of Man—asses.
57. L. s. d.
58. A pillow.
59. Abused (a—b—used).
60. A settler.
61. Because John Burns.
62. It looks round!
63. A minute.
64. A deaf and dumb man cannot tickle nine persons, because he can only gesticulate (just tickle eight!).
65. London always began with an l, and end always began with an e!
66. Season.
67. The new moon, for the full moon is much lighter.
68. Island (la is the middle, is is the beginning, and is the end!).
69. Because! (bee caws).
70. The reading of the Dark Rebus
O
B e D
is—a little blackie in bed with nothing over him.
71. If a monkey is placed before a cross it at once gets to the top, for APE is then APEX.
72. The answer to this riddle, defined as “two heads and an application,” is a kiss.
73. The Latin expression of encouragement “macte” may be applied in its English equivalent in-crease to a batsman when an umpire says of him “not out” after a risky run.
74. The place which answers to the description “Half an inch (ch) before the trees (elms), half a foot (fo), and half a yard (rd) after them leads us to an English town,” is Chelmsford.
75. The subject of the riddle, which none can locate, is nowhere. Cut asunder almost in the middle, it breaks into the opposite extreme, and becomes now here!
76. The two letters which in nine letters describe the position of one who has been left alone in his extremity are a b and one d. Abandoned.
77. Usher (us—her).
78. You can make a Maltese cross with less than twelve unbent and unbroken matches, by striking only one match and dropping it down his back. If the first fails, try another!
79. We may suppose that there were less vowels than we have now in the early days of Noe, when u and i were not there.
80. An orange (or—ange).
81. The moral taught to us by the old emblem of a weathercock in the shape of a fish on a church near Lewes is, “It is vain to aspire!”
82. FIDDLE.
83. The words “for the want of water we drank water, and if we had had water we should have drank wine,” were spoken by the crew of a vessel that could not cross the harbour bar for want of water, and who had no wine on board.
84.
The poor have two, the rich have none,
Millions have many, you have one,
is solved by O.
85. Money.
86. Had I been in Stanley’s place when Marmion cried “On, Stanley, on!” the resulting word on-i-on would have made the Scottish fray seem more like Irish stew.
87. The figure O.
88.
Let her be, or beat her,
Give her little ease;
Then in safety seat her
All among the bees,
is solved by A Queen Bee. The Bee is made up of the letter b, in Greek called beta, and two little es.
89. Its.
90. Inch—chin.