The confederate immediately replies, “Who balked you?”
The other tries vainly to guess.
Presently his companion bangs his own head, and wails in distress—
“Brother, I’m balked,” and the other replies—
“Who balked you?”
It is long before the guileless brother guesses that the assault comes from the arm of his relative lifted out of the sheet.
Should he fail to do so in a given time, another victim is called in to take his place; he joins the circle moving round the chairs, and sees for himself the manner in which the poor unsuspecting “brother” is deceived.
The Poets’ Corner
This is an excellent and ingenious pastime for young men and women who have outgrown the old-world games of “Hunt the Slipper” and “Hide and Seek.”
The “poets” are each given a slip of paper and pencil, at the head of which they write any question they like. When this is written, the papers are folded, so that the sentence is concealed, and passed on to the left-hand neighbor, who, without looking at the question, writes any word she likes beneath so long as it is a noun. This is again concealed, and passed to a third party, who must compose a rhythm or stanza, which includes both question and noun. As these have no relation to each other, some ingenuity is needed to link the two in a verse.