Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1910 — YOUNGFOLKS [ARTICLE]

YOUNGFOLKS

Hieroglyphic*. This game, which Is really a trick, Is played with a confederate, and If cleverly done, a “goodlle companie” may be deceived. A Showman, armed with a long, pointed stick, stays in the room and his confederate, the Guesser, is shut out, while the company thinks of a word. The Guesser is called in, and the Showman proceeds to spell out the word on the floor, with sundry taps and strokes of his stick. The solution is simple enough. The taps represent the vowels; one tap for a, two taps for e, three i, four for o, Ave for u, and the Guesser need pay no attention to any other - talking. Suppose, for instance, the company selects the word “book.” The cue is given In the sentence which the Showman uses to call the Guesser in. He would say, in this case, “better come in,” and the Guesser would know at once that the first letter of the first word in that sentence will be the first letter of the word to be guessed. The Showman taps four times with his stick and makes a lot of misleading strokes and signs; then he taps four times more for the second o, then he says, in an off-hand way: “Kind of hard, isn’t it?” or any other sentence introduced by the letter k. He finishes up with more signs and strokes, as if to puzzle the Guesser, who, of course, has already secured his word. The Showman must be quick and clever in placing His consonants at the beginning of spicy sentences, otherwise the humor of the trick is lost.