What is the difference between a blind man and a sailor in prison?
Answer: One cannot see to go and the other cannot go to sea.

Why is a plum-cake like the ocean?
Answer: Because it contains so many currants.

What pudding makes the best cricketer?
Answer: A good batter.

When is a sailor not a sailor?
Answer: When he’s aboard.

Why is the snow different from Sunday?
Answer: Because it can fall on any day in the week.

What trade would you mention to a short boy?
Answer: Grow sir (grosser).

What tree is nearest the sea?
Answer: The beech.

Why is a game of cards like a timber-yard?
Answer: Because there are always a great many deals in it.

Why is a tight boot like an oak tree?
Answer: Because it produces a corn (acorn).

Why is a city in Ireland likely to be the largest city in the world?
Answer: Because each year it is Dublin (doubling).

What is the easiest way to swallow a door?
Answer: Bolt it.

Why is a dancing-master like a tree?
Answer: Because of his bows (boughs).

Name a word of five letters from which if you take two but “one” remains.
Answer: Stone.

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

What is the difference between a bottle of medicine and a troublesome boy?
Answer: One is to be well shaken before taken, and the other is to be taken and then shaken.

What makes more noise than a pig under a gate?
Answer: Two pigs.

When is a door not a door?
Answer: When it is a-jar.

What is the difference between a naughty boy and a postage stamp?
Answer: Because one you stick with a lick, and the other you lick with a stick.

Why did William Tell shudder when he shot the apple from his son’s head?
Answer: Because it was an arrow escape for his child.

What is that which the more you take from it the larger it grows?
Answer: A hole.

What is the best land for little kittens?
Answer: Lapland.

Why should a man always wear a watch when he travels in a waterless desert?
Answer: Because every watch has a spring in it.

Of what trade is the sun?
Answer: A tanner.

What relation is a door-mat to a dood?
Answer: Step-fa(r)ther.

What is that which you cannot hold ten minutes, although it is as light as a feather?
Answer: Your breath.

What is the worst weather for rats and mice?
Answer: When it rains cats and dogs.

What is that which never uses its teeth for eating purposes?
Answer: A comb.

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

How can a gardener become thrifty?
Answer: By making the most of his thyme, and by always putting some celery in the bank.

Why is it probable that beer was made in the Ark?
Answer: Because the kangaroo went in with hops, and the bear was always bruin.

“What was the biggest thing you saw at the World’s Fair?” asked a wife of her husband.
Answer: “My hotel bill!” said he.

Why is C like a schoolmistress?
Answer: Because it forms lasses into classes.

What is that which never asks any questions and yet requires many answers?
Answer: The street-door.

If a man bumped his head against the top of a room, what article of stationery would he he supplied with ?
Answer: Ceiling whacks. (Sealing-wax.)

Which is the longest word in the English language?
Answer: Smiles; because there is a mile between the first and last letters.

Which is the oldest tree in England?
Answer: The Elder Tree.

How many sides are there to a tree?
Answer: Two, inside and out.

What is that which happens twice in a moment and not once in a thousand years?
Answer: The letter M.

What sea would a man most like to be in on a wet day?
Answer: A dry attic. (Adriatic.)

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

Why is a little man like a good book?
Answer: Because he is often looked over.

Why is a pig in a parlor like a house on fire?
Answer: Because the sooner it is put out the better.

What is the difference between a soldier and a bombshell?
Answer: One goes to war, the other goes to pieces.

Why is it dangerous to sleep in a train?
Answer: Because every train run over all the sleepers on the line.

Spell “enemy” in three letters?
Answer: F O E.

Which is the only way that a leopard can change his spots?
Answer: By going from one spot to another.

Why did Eve never fear the measles?
Answer: Because she’d Adam.

When is a tall man a little short?
Answer: When he hasn’t got quite enough cash.

What houses are the easiest to break into?
Answer: The houses of bald people; because their locks are few.

Why is a watch the most difficult thing to steal?
Answer: Because it must he taken off its guard.

Why is there never anybody at home in a convent?
Answer: Because it is an-uninhabited (a nun inhabited) place.

Why does a person who is not good-looking make a better carpenter than one who is?
Answer: Because he is a deal plainer.

What is the beet tree for preserving order?
Answer: The birch.

Why is shoemaking the easiest of trades?
Answer: Because the boots are always soled before they are made.

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

Why is scooping out a turnip a noisy process?
Answer: Because it makes it hollow.

Why are teeth like verbs?
Answer: Because they are regular, irregular, and defective.

What ships hardly ever sail out of right?
Answer: Hardships.

When is an artist a dangerous person?
Answer: When his designs are bad.

Why are tortoiseshell-combs like citadels?
Answer: They are for tresses.

Why is the Isthmus of Suez like the first “u” in cucumber?
Answer: Because it is between two “c’s” (seas).

What motive led to the invention of railroads?
Answer: The locomotive.

When is the best time to get a fresh egg at sea?
Answer: When the ship lays to.

Who was the First whistler?
Answer: The wind.

What tune did he whistle?
Answer: Over the hills and far away.

Why need a traveler never starve in the desert?
Answer: Because of the sand which is (sandwiches) there.

Why is sympathy like blindman’s-buff?
Answer: Because it is a fellow feeling for a fellow creature.

If a Frenchman were to fall into a tun of tallow, in what word would he express his situation?
Answer: In-de-fat-i-gabble. (Indefatigable.)

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

If an egg were found on a music-stool, what poem would it remind you of?
Answer: “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.”

Why is a schoolmaster like a shoe-black?
Answer: Because he polishes the understanding of the people.

Why is a washerwoman like a navigator?
Answer: Because she spreads her sheets, crosses the line, and goes from pole to pole.

Why is an author the queerest animal in the world?
Answer: Because his tale comes out of his head.

Why is it that a tailor won’t attend to business?
Answer: Because he is always cutting out.

When can a horse be sea-green in color?
Answer: When it’s a bay.

Why were gloves never meant to sell?
Answer: Because they were made to be kept on hand.

When are we all artists?
Answer: When we draw a long face.

Why are watch-dogs bigger by night than by day?
Answer: Because they are let out at night and taken in in the morning.

When is a tradesman always above his business?
Answer: When he lives over his shop.

Which is the liveliest city in the world?
Answer: Berlin; because it’s always on the Spree.

Why is a water-lily like a whale?
Answer: Because they both come to the surface to blow.

Why is a shoemaker the most industrious of men?
Answer: Because he works to the last.

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

What is that which everybody has seen but will never see again?
Answer: Yesterday.

Which is the best day for making a pancake?
Answer: Friday.

Which is the smallest bridge in the world?
Answer: The bridge of your nose.

What four letters would frighten a thief?
Answer: O I C U.

What is that which goes from London to York without moving?
Answer: The road.

Which is easier to spell fiddle-de-dee or fiddle-de-dum?
Answer: fiddle-de-dee, because it is spelt with more “e’s.”

When may a chair he said to dislike you?
Answer: When it can’t bear you.

What animal took most luggage into the Ark, and which two took the least?
Answer: The elephant, who took his trunk, while the fox and the cock had only a brush and a comb between them.

Which of the English kings has most reason to complain of his washer-woman?
Answer: King John, when he lost his baggage in the Wash.

If a bear were to go into a linen-draper’s shop, what would he want?
Answer: He would want muzzlin’.

Why is B like a hot fire?
Answer: Because it makes oil Boil.

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

In this game every one in the company has to describe in a riddle, First a bird, then a fruit, and finally a flower. The others must guess. Whoever guesses the most is the winner of the game.

Here are examples of the riddles:

BIRD: Although a bird I mm part of a plant.
Answer: STORK. (Stalk).

FRUIT: Although a single specimen, I am really two.
Answer: PEAR.

FLOWERS: Although usually white, I am always described as rose colored in hue.
Answer: PINK.

Image © Martini Captures @ Flickr, Attribution

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

A subject is given to the company by the “teacher” and those joining in the game are each to define the subject in as terse a manner as possible, in epigram or verse, written on a slip of paper.

The cards are then signed, turned in and the “teacher” reads the definitions.

Then the company are to decide which one of the definitions has the greatest merit. For instance, the word “Friendship” is given and the answers might run like these:

“A feather from love’s wing.”
“The greatest of boons.”
“Something akin to glue,” etc.

Or the word “Gold” might evoke:

“That which I have not.”
“The root of all evil.”
“What goes to the plumber,” etc.

Image © PhliarShamim @ Flickr, Share-Alike

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain

Why is a vine like a soldier?
Answer: Because it is listed and has ten drills (tendrils) and shoots.

Why is an opera-singer like a confectioner?
Answer: Because she deals in ice-creams (high screams).

If a man who is carrying a dozen glass lamps drops one, what does he become?
Answer: A lamp lighter.

What belongs to yourself, but is used more by your friends than by yourself?
Answer: Your name.

Why is a spider a good correspondent?
Answer: Because he drops a line at every post.

When is the clock on the stars dangerous?
Answer: When it runs down.

Why is the letter “k” like a pig’s tail?
Answer: Because it comes at the end of pork.

What is the keynote to good manners ?
Answer: B natural.

Why is a five pound bank note much more profitable than five sovereigns?
Answer: Because when you put it in your pocket you double it, and when you take it out you will find it increases (in creases.)

Why is a watch like a river?
Answer: Because it doesn’t run long without winding.

What is that which flies high, flies low, has no feet, and yet wears shoes?
Answer: Dust.

When has a man four hands?
Answer: When he doubles his fists.

What trees has fire no effect upon?
Answer: Ash-trees; because when they are burned, they are ashes still.

What is the difference between a schoolmaster and an engine-driver?
Answer: One minds the train and the other trains the mind.

Image © Tom@HK @ Flickr, Attribution

Games for All Occasions by Mary E. Blain