Pass around pencils and paper. Assign a “model” to each artist, in every case having model and artist across from each other if possible. This arrangement makes every guest both an artist and a model. At a signal they begin their artistry and are given three minutes in which to draw portraits of the models assigned. All artists must put their names on their pictures, but models’ names are omitted. The pictures are collected at the end of three minutes, are shuffled and again passed around.
Each guest must decide who he thinks was the model for the picture he holds. He writes that person’s name on the picture and when all have done that, the pictures are given to the suspected models. Violence has been committed with less cause! Occasionally someone picks a wrong model! That is why, at a signal from the hostess each one in turn turns over his picture and reads aloud the name of the artist as well as the name written on the portrait, and the artist is compelled to tell who his model was, regardless of what the picture looks like.
That is a good time to break up the party!
Excuse Me!
A question is put to the group as a whole: “Why weren’t you at the meeting last night?” In two minutes each one is to be ready to give his excuse, and the only requirement is that the excuse is to be put in terms of one’s own initials, and to be preceded by “Because I was——”
For example, one guest’s initials are “C. F. B.” When asked why she wasn’t at the meeting last night she glibly replied, “Because I was curling Father’s beard!”
Invitations.
Guests are standing about informally. The topic of conversation is, “Why I want you to come to call!” Each girl is asked to choose a man whom she will invite to call on her. Sue Lawson chooses Ned Parsons, and she is to urge him to accept her invitation to call but she will have to give him a mighty good reason for wanting him. He is to accept and is to tell her why he is so glad to come. In both cases one’s partner’s initials are of importance, for the reason one gives is to be based on them. Miss Lawson tells Mr. Parsons that he just must come to call because he “needs protection,” and he tells her that he will be glad to because she is “so lovely!”
Three minutes are given for invitations and their acceptances at the end of which time the leader starts calling for a report. “Ted Frazer, who invited you to call?”
“Gertrude Field. She said she wanted me to call because I was ‘turrible funny,’” whereupon the leader calls upon Gertrude Field to ask why Mr. Frazer wanted to accept her invitation. She replies, “To get a ‘good feed’!”