It is to laugh

by Edna Geister

Just between us, there is a match pushed far into the hem at all four corners. Each time she is supposed to be cracking the match in the center of the handkerchief, she is very careful to crack one of the corner matches instead!

Leterfly.

Leterfly and Salaam are quite evidently not for exactly formal dress affairs! Leterfly is especially good for Poverty Parties and the like, and is best adapted to a small group. Guests are told that one by one they will be introduced to the Fly Family. The leader chooses four assistants, and the rest of the guests are taken aside some place where they cannot see the presentations. The assistants are lined up like a receiving line as the Fly Family, and as the guests come in, one at a time, they are presented to each member of the family. The first one is the butterfly, next the firefly, then the dragonfly, and lastly leterfly, who does what her name implies and lets fly about ten drops of cold water from a thimble which she has held concealed at her side.

Salaam.

His Majesty, the King of Timbuktu, is seated on his throne at one end of the room with a page close at hand. Four or five people have been asked to leave the room and to come in one at a time as called, in order to be presented to His Majesty. The first one is called in, brought before the king, told to bow deeply before him three times, each time saying, “I pledge allegiance to my king.” He is told too, that the deeper his bow, the greater his favor with the king. He bows once, then again, and then a third time. His allegiance gets a bit chilled however during the third bow, for the page has provided the king with a small piece of ice, which is gently but firmly applied to the back of the neck during the third bow.

Hypnotism.

Much care is evidenced in the selecting of a subject for hypnotism. It is hardly necessary to say that a confederate is in the group. The hypnotist goes about touching different people’s temples to see whether they are the right kind for hypnotism. He finally discovers a good subject, his confederate of course. The subject is sent out of the room while the group decides on something they want him to do when hypnotized. Perhaps they want him to sing. He is seated on a chair facing the audience and the hypnotist begins to rub his forehead slowly. The movements are slow and well defined, that is, the fingers are lifted after each move across the forehead. The subject soon loses consciousness and as the movements continue, seems to get more and more under the spell of the hypnotist. Finally with a shaking of his fingers the hypnotist stops and there is absolute silence for just a moment, in order to keep the subject under the spell. Suddenly he begins singing in a high squeaky voice, “Wait till the Sun Shines Nellie!”

If the subject has any relatives present they will almost surely beg that he be taken out of his trance. The obliging hypnotist presses his fingers twice into the temples of the subject who shudders, sighs, and wakes up wondering what it is all about!

Frankly, it is not easy to do unless both subject and hypnotist are very alert and wideawake. If they are, however, it is a comparatively simple process to hypnotize a confederate into doing anything the audience wants him to do. We assume that they want him to sing. The hypnotist begins rubbing his forehead and carefully rubs nineteen times, for “s,” the first letter in sing, is the nineteenth letter of the alphabet. He carefully lifts his fingers at the end of each movement. After the nineteenth rub he presses hard into both temples to show that the letter is completed. Waiting just a second, he begins again and rubs nine times for “i,” the ninth letter of the alphabet, pressing the temples at the end. The next time he rubs fourteen times for “n,” and the last time only seven times for “g,” at the end of which he shakes his fingers vigorously as a signal that the word is completed.

It will make it more interesting for all concerned if the hypnotist asks the audience to choose verbs of three or four letters. His explanation is that simple action is very easy to get over even to a new subject, while long and complicated action takes practice. The real reason is that it is fairly easy for a subject to get the words “cry,” or “dance” or “sleep” or “jump,” while “hippity-hop” would be almost impossible and too long drawn out to be interesting.