HOW TO GET A RING OUT OF A HANDKERCHIEF.
Bend a piece of wire into the form of a ring, having previously sharpened both ends. You have a real ring made of the same sort of wire, and, concealing the false ring in the corner of your hand, offer the real one to be inspected.
When it is returned, borrow a handkerchief, and while taking it from the lender, slip the real one into your left hand, and take the false one at its point of junction. Throw the handkerchief over the ring, and give it to some one to hold between his finger and thumb. Let the handkerchief fall over it, and give a piece of string to a second spectator, directing him to tie it round the handkerchief about two inches below the ring, so as to inclose it in a bag, and tell him to do so as tightly as he can.
While he is doing this, take up your conjuring wand—a rod of some hard wood, about eighteen inches long—and when the knot is tied, step forward, passing the rod into your left hand, taking care to slip over it the real ring, which has lain concealed there. Slip your left hand to the centre of the rod, and direct each of the two persons to hold one end of it in his right hand. Then tell the one who has the ring and handkerchief to lay them on your left hand, which you immediately cover with your right. Then tell them to spread another handkerchief over your hands, and to say after you any nonsense that you like to invent. While they are so doing, unbend the false ring, and draw it through the handkerchiefs by one of its points, carefully rubbing between the thumb and finger the place where it came through.
Hang the empty handkerchief over the ring which is on the rod, and take away your hands, which you exhibit empty, as you have stuck the false ring inside the cuff. Take away the upper handkerchief, and let a third person come to examine, when he will find the ring gone out of the handkerchief, and hung upon the rod.
[ENIGMA.]
Proudly I'm borne o'er the billowy sea,
And far-distant nations have trembled at me;
Yet my office at times is so mean and so low
I am subject to many an insult and blow.
By the side of the mill-stream I fearlessly rest,
And gracefully bend o'er the lake's glassy breast;
Yet the glory of England I bear far and wide,
And under me thousands have fought and have died.
Though 'tis true that, whene'er I appear in the street,
I am trampled in scorn by the crowd's busy feet,
I am often exalted in station and place,
And to strike me has ever been held a disgrace!
How often I claim your attention and care,
And repay you with smiles in your blooming parterre!
Then what can I be, who am known near and far,
And so gentle in peace, and so fearful in war?
A Musical Spider.—His appreciation of music may have been a compensation for what we may fairly suppose must have been considered in the spider world a deformity. He had but seven legs. This gave us an excuse for calling him Seven-foot. Evening after evening he would come creeping out of his hole the minute the Doctor struck up a waltz. It was really curious to watch the long-legged thing come scurrying up for his evening concert. For half one winter, perhaps, he did this, taking up his post on top of the piano as regularly as the Doctor sat down to play. It is said that all spiders have a decided taste and liking for music. If this is true, this creature must have been the Mendelssohn of his race. Finally, however, to the regret of all who used to watch for his coming, Seven-foot failed to appear. Whether he had got a surfeit of music, or whether Louise, in wielding her dust-brush, had unwittingly brought him to an untimely end, nobody was ever able to discover. I only know he vanished as suddenly as he came, leaving a large circle of acquaintances behind him to mourn his departure.
"RIDE A COCK-HORSE TO BANBURY CROSS."
KITE-TIME.
"Now, then, Jimmy, stop squirmin' so, an' if the string don't break, it'll be just as good as a balloon ascension for you."