The place to exercise the brain in order to stimulate the stomach.
Bon Appétit!
1. Why is a butcher’s cart like his boots?
2. Cheese often comes after meat, but what often comes after cheese?
4. By what process could you make a tea-table into food?
5. Why is a restaurateur like a doctor?
7. It gapes day and night awaiting punishment,
8. If I hold your waist you jump and jump.
10. A box without hinges, key, or lid; wherein, a golden treasure inside is hid.
11. What is placed upon the table, often cut, but never eaten?
12. Why is a waiter like a race-horse?
13. Why do skates resemble the forbidden fruit?
14. If a certain fresh-water fish were to knock at your door,
and you were to invite him to come in,
what trade would you likely to name?
15. Why is a dancer like a cook?
16. A NEBRASKA TOWN OF TWO WORDS—FOUR LETTERS EACH
”Mother shall I beat the rice,
While it is cooking, to make it nice?”
”Oh, no, my child, you must not beat,
The rice would not be fit to eat.
”But watch it close, don’t let it burn,
And have those chops done to a turn—
You know those people from the west
May be here.”
Now who will guess what town is this
And tell me where, and are the wild
Beasts prowling there?
17. May I never have my second without my first,
and always my whole when I am thirsty!
18. My first a rope may do,
And put an end to you;
My next the Pope may do,
With a proper end in view:
My whole I hope we do
Every morning anew.
19. My first was dark o’er earth and air,
As dark as she could be,
The stars that gemmed her ebon chair
Were only two or three;
King Cole saw twice as many there
As you or I could see.
”Away, King Cole,” mine hostess said,
”Flagon and flask are dry;
Tour nag is neighing in the shed,
For he knows a storm is nigh.”
She set my second on his head,
And she set it all awry!
He stood upright upon his legs;
Long life to good King Cole!
With wine and cinnamon, ale and eggs,
He filled a silver bowl;
He drained the draught to the very dregs,
And he called that draught my whole!
Praed.
20. How will a diet of herbs make a person healthy, wealthy, and wise?
21. What makes everybody sick but those who swallow it?
22. What dish furnishes the best conversation?
23. What vegetable most resemble a lady’s tongue?
24. I am a thing that many say,
Is bought with toil and trouble;.
What all would wish for once a day.
Yet none desire to double.
25. From foreign climes my origin I trace;
My hue as varied as my services.
Without me, vain would be the nurse’s care
To sooth the infant in its fretful mood;
The housewife too, my wonted aid would miss;
Her pies and puddings would no longer please,
But to ignoble exile be condemn’d.
26. You eat me, you drink me; describe me, who
can;
I’m sometimes a woman, and sometimes a man.
27. What is pretty and useful in various ways,
Though it tempts some poor mortals to shorten
their days;
Take one letter from it, and then will appear
What youngsters admire every day in the year!
Take two letters from it, and then, without doubt,
You are what that is, if you don’t find it out.
28. I fill the mouth, but not with meat,
For they that chew me cannot eat;
And they that use my aid to win,
Are like me most when taken in.
29. Enough for one, too much for two,
and nothing at all for three.
30. Ever eating, ever cloying,
All-devouring, all-destroying
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.
31. Though I, alas! a prisoner be,
My trade is prisoners to set free.
No slave his lord’s commands obeys
With such insinuating ways.
My genius piercing, sharp, and bright,
Wherein the men of wit delight
The clergy keep me for their ease,
And turn and wind me as they please.
A new and wondrous art I show
Of raising spirits from below;
In scarlet some, and some in white;
They rise, walk round, yet never fright
In at each mouth the spirits pass,
Distinctly seen as through a glass.
O’er head and body make a rout,
And drive at last all secrets out;
And still, the more I show my art,
The more they open every heart
A greater chemist none than I
Who, from materials hard and dry,
Have taught men to extract with skill
More precious juice than from a stilL
Although I’m often out of case,
I’m not ashamed to show my face.
Though at the tables of the great
I near the sideboard take my seat;
Yet the plain ’squire, when dinner’s done,
Is never pleased till I make one;
He kindly bids me near him stand,
And often takes me by the hand.
I twice a-day a-hunting go,
And never fail to seize my foe;
And when I have him by the poll,
I drag him upward from his hole;
Though some are of so stubborn kind,
I’m forced to leave a limb behind.
I hourly wait some fatal end;
For I can break, but scorn to bend.
