The Sunny Side (16 page)
Authors: A.A. Milne
“Thank you very much,” said our host faintly when I had finished.
It was the last straw which broke the camel's back, and it was Herbert who stepped forward blithely with the last straw. Our host, as he
admitted afterwards, was still quite in the dark, and with his last question he presented Herbert with an absolute gift.
“When do you go back to Devonshire?” he asked.
“Weâerâreturn next month,” answered Herbert. “I should say,” he added hastily, “we go
back
next month.”
My own private opinion was that the sooner he returned to Devonshire the better.
Disillusioned
The card was just an ordinary card,
The letter just an ordinary letter.
The letter simply said “Dear Mr. Brown,
I'm asked by Mrs. Phipp to send you this”;
The card said, “Mrs. Philby Phipp, At Home,”
And in a corner, “Dancing, 10 p.m.,”
No moreâexcept a date, a hint in French
That a reply would not be deemed offensive,
And, most important, Mrs. Phipp's address.
Destiny, as the poets have observed
(Or will do shortly) is a mighty thing.
It takes us by the ear and lugs us firmly
Down different paths towards one common goal,
Paths pre-appointed, not of our own choosing;
Or sometimes throws two travellers together,
Marches them side by side for half a mile,
Then snatches them apart and hauls them onward.
Thus happened it that Mrs. Phipp and I
Had never met to any great extent,
Had never met, as far as I remembered,
At allâ¦And yet there must have been a time
When she and I were very near together,
When some one told her, “
That
is Mr. Brown,”
Or introduced us “
This
is Mr. Brown,”
Or asked her if she'd heard of Mr. Brown;
I know not what, I only know that now
She stood At Home in need of Mr. Brown,
And I had pledged myself to her assistance.
Behold me on the night, the latest word
In all that separates the gentleman
(And waiters) from the evening-dress-less mob
And graced, moreover, by the latest word
In waistcoats such as mark one from the waiters
My shirt, I must not speak about my shirt;
My tie, I cannot dwell upon my tieâ
Enough that all was neat, harmonious,
And suitable to Mrs. Philby Phipp.
Behold me, then, complete. A hasty search
To find the card, and reassure myself
That this is certainly the dayâ(It is)â
And 10 p.m. the hour; “p.m.,” not “a.m.,”
Not after breakfastâgood; and then outside,
To jump into a cab and take the winds,
The cold east winds of March, with beauty. So.
Let us get on more quickly. Looms ahead
Tragedy. Let us on and have it over.
I hung with men and women on the stairs
And watched the tall white footman take the names,
And heard him shout them out, and there I shaped
My own name ready for him, “Mr. Brown.”
And Mrs. Philby Phipp, hearing the name,
Would, I imagined, brighten suddenly
And smile and say, “How
are
you, Mr. Brown?”
And in an instant I'd remember her,
And where we met, and who was Mr. Phipp,
And all the jolly time at Grindelwald
(If that was where it was); and she and I
Would talk of Art and Politics and things
As we had talked these many years agoâ¦
So “Mr. Brown” I murmured to the man,
And heâthe fool!âhe took a mighty breath
And shouted, “Mr. BROWNIE!”âBrownie!
Yes,
He shouted “Mr. BROWNIE” to the roof.
And Mrs. Philby Phipp, hearing the name,
Brightened up suddenly and smiled and said,
“How
are
you, Mr. Brownie?Ӊ(Brownie! Lord!)
And, while my mouth was open to protest,
“
How
do you do?” to some one at the back.
So I was passed along into the crowd
As Brownie!
Who on earth is Mr. Brownie?
Did he, I wonder, he and Mrs. Phipp
Talk Art and Politics at Grindelwald,
Or did one simply point him out to her
With “That is Mr. Brownie?” Were they friends,
Dear friends, or casual acquaintances?
She brightened at his name, some memory
Came back to her that brought a happy smileâ
Why surely they were friends! But
I
am Brown,
A stranger, all unknown to Mrs. Phipp,
As she to me, a common interloperâI
see it nowâan uninvited guest,
Whose card was clearly meant for Mr. Brownie.
Soft music fell, and the kaleidoscope
Of lovely woman glided, swayed and turned
Beneath the shaded lights; but Mr. Brownie
(
N
Brown, not Brownie) stood upon one side
And brooded silently. Some spoke to him;
Whether to Brown or Brownie mattered not,
He did not answer, did not notice them,
Just stood and broodedâ¦Then went home to
bed.
A Few Tricks For Christmas
(In the manner of many contemporaries)
Â
Now that the “festive season” (copyright) is approaching, it behooves us all to prepare ourselves in some way to contribute to the gaiety of the Christmas house-party. A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. Fortunately there are a few simple conjuring tricks which are within the reach of us all. With practice even the clumsiest of us can obtain sufficient dexterity in the art of illusion to puzzle the most observant of our fellow-guests. The few simple tricks which I am about to explain, if studied diligently for a few days before Christmas, will make a genuine addition to the gaiety of any gathering, and the amateur prestidigitator (if I may use that word again) will
find that he is amply repaying the hospitality of his host and hostess by his contribution to the general festivity.
So much by way of introduction. It is a difficult style of writing to keep up, particularly when the number of synonyms for “conjuring” is so strictly limited. Let me now get to the tricks. I call the first
H
OLDING
T
HE
L
EMON
For this trick you want a lemon and a pack of ordinary playing-cards. Cutting the lemon in two, you hand half to one member of your audience and half to another, asking them to hold the halves up in full view of the company. Then, taking the pack of cards in your own hands, you offer it to a third member of the party, requesting him to select a card and examine it carefully. When he has done this he puts it back in the pack, and you seize this opportunity to look hurriedly at the face of it, discovering (let us say) that it is the five of spades. Once more you shuffle the pack; and then, going through the cards one by one, you will have no difficulty in locating the five of spades, which you will hold up to the company with the words “I think this is your card, sir”âwhereupon the audience will
testify by its surprise and appreciation that you have guessed correctly.
It will be noticed that, strictly speaking, the lemon is not a necessary adjunct of this trick; but the employment of it certainly adds an air of mystery to the initial stages of the illusion, and this air of mystery is, after all, the chief stock-in-trade of the successful conjurer.
Â
For my next trick, which I call
T
HE
I
LLUSORY
E
GG
and which is most complicated, you require a sponge, two tablecloths, a handful of nuts, a rabbit, five yards of coloured ribbon, a top-hat with a hole in it, a hard-boiled egg, two florins and a gentleman's watch. Having obtained all these things, which may take some time, you put the two tablecloths aside and separate the other articles into two heaps, the rabbit, the top-hat, the hard-boiled egg, and the handful of nuts being in one heap, and the ribbon, the sponge, the gentleman's watch and the two florins in the other. This being done, you cover each heap with a tablecloth, so that none of
the objects beneath is in any way visible. Then you invite any gentleman in the audience to think of a number. Let us suppose he thinks of 38. In that case you ask any lady in the audience to think of an odd number, and she suggests (shall we say?) 29. Then, asking the company to watch you carefully, youâyouâTo tell the truth, I have forgotten just what it is you
do
do, but I know that it is a very good trick, and never fails to create laughter and bewilderment. It is distinctly an illusion worth trying, and, if you begin it in the manner I have described, quite possibly some way of finishing it up will occur to you on the spur of the moment. By multiplying the two numbers together and passing the hard-boiled egg through the sponge and then taking theâ¦or is it theâAnyway, I'm certain you have to have a piece of elastic up the sleeveâ¦and I know one of the florins has toâNo, it's no good, I can't remember it.
But mention of the two numbers reminds me of a trick which I haven't forgotten. It is a thought-reading illusion, and always creates the
maximum
of wonderment amongst the audience. It is called
T
HE
T
HREE
Q
UESTIONS
As before, you ask a gentleman in the company to write down a number on a piece of paper, and a lady to write down another number. These numbers they show to the other guests. You then inform the company that you will ask any one of them three questions, and by the way they are answered you will guess what the product of the two numbers is. (For instance, if the numbers were 13 and 17, then 13 multiplied by 17 isâlet's see, thirteen sevens areâthirteen sevensâseven threes are twenty-one, seven times one isâwell, look here, let's suppose the numbers are 10 and 17. Then the product is 170, and 170 is the number you have got to guess.)
Well, the company selects a lady to answer your questions, and the first thing you ask her is: “When was Magna Carta signed?” Probably she says that she doesn't know. Then you say, “What is the capital of Persia?” She answers Timbuctoo, or Omar Khayyam, according to how well informed she is. Then comes your last question: “What makes lightning?” She is practically certain to say, “Oh, the thunder.” Then you tell her that the two numbers multiplied together come to 170.
How is this remarkable trick performed? It is quite simple. The two people whom you asked to think of the numbers are confederates, and you arranged with them beforehand that they should write down 10 and 17. Of course it would be a much better trick if they weren't confederates; but in that case I don't quite know how you would do it.
I shall end up this interesting and instructive article with a rather more difficult illusion. For the tricks I have already explained it was sufficient that the amateur prestidigitator (I shall only say this once more) should know how it was done; for my last trick he will also require a certain aptitude for legerdemain in order to do it. But a week's quiet practice at home will give him all the skill that is necessary.
T
HE
M
YSTERIOUS
P
UDDING
is one of the oldest and most popular illusions. You begin by borrowing a gold watch from one of your audience. Having removed the works, you wrap the empty case up in a handkerchief
and hand it back to him, asking him to put it in his waistcoat pocket. The works you place in an ordinary pudding basin and proceed to pound up with a hammer. Having reduced them to powder, you cover the basin with another handkerchief, which you borrow from a member of the company, and announce that you are about to make a plum-pudding. Cutting a small hole in the top of the handkerchief, you drop a lighted match through the aperture; whereupon the handkerchief flares up. When the flames have died down you exhibit the basin, wherein (to the surprise of all) is to be seen an excellent Christmas pudding, which you may ask your audience to sample. At the same time you tell the owner of the watch that if he feels in his pockets he will find his property restored to him intact; and to his amazement he discovers that the works in some mysterious way have got back into his watch, and that the handkerchief in which it was wrapped up has gone!
Now for the explanation of this ingenious illusion. The secret of it is that you have a second basin, with a pudding in it, concealed in the palm of your right hand. At the critical moment, when the handkerchief flares up, you take advantage of the excitement produced to substitute the one basin for
the other. The watch from which you extract the works is not the borrowed one, but one which you have had concealed between the third and fourth fingers of the left hand. You show the empty case of this watch to the company, before wrapping the watch in the handkerchief and handing it back to its owner. Meanwhile with the aid of a little wax you have attached an invisible hair to the handkerchief, the other end of it being fastened to the palm of your left hand. With a little practice it is not difficult to withdraw the handkerchief, by a series of trifling jerks, from, the pocket of your fellow-guest to its resting place between the first and second finger of your left hand.