Ask some one in the room to select a penny and note its date. You will now say, "I am under the charm of King Copero, and I will try to tell you the date. Don't let me see the coin at close range, because I want to tell the date without seeing the coin and cause you to witness King Copero's mystic power. I will now ask you to place it under the corner of the rug, and then stand on it, and King Copero will tell me the date." You now close your eyes and exclaim, "Copero the mystic, come to my thoughts and tell me the date!" Open your eyes, and look around the room for the King, and then place your hand back of your ear and exclaim, "Speak, Copero, tell me the date." You now exclaim, "I hear you, King. You have spoken indeed." Then with great dignity say, "The date is 1925. I did not say I would give you the date on the coin, but would give you 'the date,' and the present date is 1925 or the year in which you play the game." This will produce a smile and provoke genuine jollity.
8. Making a Strong Man Sweat
Here is the way to make a strong person sweat and become tired by carrying a small stick out of the room. This seems impossible, and it causes you to smile as you think it over.
This is the way to do it. Select the strongest and tallest boy or man present, and say that you have a task for him to perform. Place in his hands a thin stick not much thicker than a pipe-stem and about six inches long. Tell him he is to carry it out of the room and lay it down one foot from the other side of the door without sweating or becoming tired. Of course, he not knowing your intention will laugh at this proposition.
As soon as he promises to do this task take the stick and with a knife cut off a little bit so small he can hardly see it; then bid him carry that first. Then give him another piece of the stick, and so until it is all carried out. This would cause him to make about a thousand trips and more before he has carried out the entire stick, and it would take him two weeks working day and night to complete the task. It would surely make him sweat and grow weary. He himself will so conclude. This little stunt seems quite insignificant at first, and that makes the laugh more hearty at the last. This was a stunt quite common in the days of Washington and the Colonial children.
9. The Disappearing Square
Draw a square about two feet square on a large sheet of common paper. Pin it up on the door and say you have the pleasure of presenting to your audience the Wondrous Square which has the marvelous power of disappearing and reappearing right before your very eyes. Then ask the audience to close both eyes and they will note the square has perfectly disappeared. Then ask them to open their eyes, and the square immediately reappears again. This little stunt has been used by over a thousand little friends of mine and has helped them to make "merry with their friends."
It will often help a little to secure a small box of tricks and show them how to do them. Sometimes one of the invited boys may own such a box. Ask him to bring it with him, and show them how to do wonders also.
This can be made a large evening for the teacher personally. Be careful to listen to the children as they speak, observe the laws of their conversation, note down the words they use when they talk to each other, and when you talk to them talk as they talk, observe the same rules of conversation, and use their words when you talk to them in the lesson, then will they hear a lesson in their own tongue. It will be something new for them, and the lesson will be a success, and you will feel well paid for the labors of your social hour.