Amusing Tricks.

THE FRUIT CANDLE.

Procure a good, large apple or turnip, and cut from it a piece of the shape to resemble the butt-end of a tallow candle; then from a nut of some kind—an almond is the best—whittle out a small peg of about the size and shape of a wick end. Stick the peg in the apple and you have a very fair representation of a candle. The wick you can light, and it will burn for at least a minute. In performing you should have your candle in a clean candlestick, show it plainly to the audience, and then put it into your mouth, taking care to blow it out, and munch it up. If you think best, you can blow the candle out and allow the wick to cool, and it will look, with its burned wick, so natural that even the sharpest eyes can not distinguish it from the genuine article.

Once, at a summer resort in Massachusetts, I made use of this candle with considerable effect. While performing a few parlor tricks to amuse some friends, I pretended to need a light. A confederate left the room, and soon returned with a lantern containing one of these apple counterfeits.

"Do you call that a candle?" I said.

"Certainly," he replied.

"Why, there is scarcely a mouthful."

"A mouthful? Rather a disagreeable mouthful, I guess."

"You have never been in Russia, I presume."

"Never."

"Then you don't know what is good."

"Good?"

"Yes, good. Why, candle ends, with the wick a little burned to give them a flavor, are delicious. They always serve them up before dinner in Russia as a kind of relish. It is considered bad taste in good society there to ask a friend to sit down to dinner without offering him this appetizer."

"The bad taste would be in the relish, I think."

"Not at all. Try a bit."

I took the candle out of the lantern, and extended it toward my confederate, who shrank back with disgust.

"Well," I said, "if you won't have it, I'll eat it myself." And so saying, I put it into my mouth and munched it up, amid the cries of surprise and horror of the assembled party. Two old maids insisted on looking into my mouth to see whether it was not concealed there.

Having soaked a piece of thread in common salt water, tie it to a small finger-ring. When you apply the flame of a candle to the thread it will burn to ashes and yet sustain the ring.

A DIFFICULT CIRCLE TO JUMP FROM.

Take a piece of chalk, and ask, if you make a circle, whether any boy standing in it thinks he can jump out of it. As soon as one proposes to do so, bring him into the center of the room, draw a circle with the chalk around his jacket, and say, "Now jump out of it!"

AN IMPOSSIBLE WALK.

Ask one young lady in the company whether she thinks, if she clasped her hands, she could walk out of the room. On her saying she could, request her to pass her arm round the leg of the table or piano, join her hands, and walk away.

THE HAT TRICK.

Fill a small glass with water, cover it with a hat, and profess your readiness to drink it without touching the hat. Put your head under the table, make a noise, as if drinking, rise, and wipe your lips. The company, thinking you have drunk the water, one of them will certainly take up the hat to see. As soon as the hat is removed, take up the glass and drink its contents. "There!" say you, "you see I have not touched the hat."

THE INCOMBUSTIBLE THREAD.

Wind some linen thread tightly round a smooth pebble, and secure the end; then, if you expose it to the flame of a lamp or candle, the thread will not burn; for the caloric (or heat) traverses the thread, without remaining in it, and attacks the stone. The same sort of trick may be performed with a poker, round which is evenly pasted a sheet of paper. You can poke the fire with it without burning the paper.

AN IMPOSSIBLE JUMP.

Take a ruler, or any other piece of wood, and ask whether, if you laid it down on the ground, any of the company could jump over it. Of course one or two will express their readiness to jump over so small an obstruction. Then lay the ruler on the ground, close against the wall, and tell them to try.

A DIFFICULT LOAD TO CARRY.

Take a piece of wood, such as a lucifer match, and say to one of the company, "How long do you think it would take you to carry this piece of wood into the next room?" "Half a minute." perhaps one will reply. "Well, try, then," say you; "carry it." You then cut off little pieces, and give them to him one by one. He will soon be tired of the experiment.

TO TURN A GLASS OF WATER UPSIDE DOWN WITHOUT SPILLING ITS CONTENTS.

Fill a glass carefully, place a piece of paper on the top, place your hand on the paper, and tilt the glass round sharply, when it will be found that the pressure of the air upward on the paper will retain the water. The glass may then be held by the bottom.

Health and Home says: I want to tell you of something very funny to do, if you have a little brother or sister who does not mind dressing up and standing still for a few moments. My aunt showed me how to do it the other day, when sister Nelly had a birthday party. We took little brother Tommy out into the library and stood him upon a high wooden stool, and dressed him up very finely in mamma's clothes. The stool made him so full that the dress was of just the right length. Then Uncle Ned, telling him to stand straight and firm, carried him, stool and all, into the parlor. I wish you could have heard the girls and boys laugh! He had such a comical look—with his tall body and little round face—just like some of those French Parian figures. One little girl handed him a fan, and then it was too funny to see the tall lady fan herself affectedly with her very small, dimpled hands. All the boys and girls just shouted.—Young People.