final and corrected form, "Why does a young
gentleman who has partaken freely of the pudding,
which at this establishment precedes the
meat, resemble a meteor?—Because he's
effulgent—a full gent!"

Hopeful, surely! Nothing unnaturally
premature in the composition. Founded on a
strictly boyish grievance. Possessing a certain
archæological interest in its reference to the now
obsolete practice of administering pudding before
meat at educational establishments, with the view
of damping the appetite (and constitution) of the
pupils.

Though inscribed upon perishable and greasy
slate, in ephemeral slate-pencil, my riddle lived.
It was repeated. It became popular. It was
all over the school, and at last it came to the ears
of the master. That unimaginative person had
no taste for the fine arts. I was sent for,
interrogated as to whether this work of art was
the product of my brain, and, having given an
answer in the affirmative, received a distinct,
and even painful, punch on the head, accompanied
by specific directions to inscribe straightway
the words "Dangerous Satirising," two
thousand times, on the very slate on which my
riddle had been originally composed.

Notwithstanding this act of despotism on the
part of the unappreciative Beast who invariably
treated me as if I were not profitable (when I
knew the contrary), my reverence for the great
geniuses who have excelled in the department
of which I am speaking, grew with my growth,
and strengthened with &c. Think of the
pleasure, the rapture, which Riddles afford to
persons of wholesomely constituted mind! Think
of the innocent sense of triumph felt by the
man who propounds a riddle to a company, to
every member of which it is a novelty. He
alone is the proprietor of the answer. His
is a glorious position. He keeps everybody
waiting. He wears a calm and placid smile.
He has the rest at his mercy. He is happy—
—innocently happy.

But who makes the Riddles?

I DO.

Am I going to let out a great mystery?
Am I going to initiate the uninitiated? Am I
going to let the world know how it is done?

Yes. I am.

It is done in the main by the Dictionary; but
the consultation of that work of reference, with
a view to the construction of riddles, is a process
so bewildering—it puts such a strain upon the
faculties—that at first you cannot work at it for
more than a quarter of an hour at once. The process
is terrific. First of all you get yourself
thoroughly awake and on the alert—it is good to
run the fingers through the hair roughly at this
crisis—then you take your Dictionary, and,
selecting a particular letter, you go down the
column, stopping at every word that looks in the
slightest degree promising, drawing back from
it as artists draw back from a picture to see it
the better, twisting it, and turning it, and if it
yield nothing, passing on to the next. With
the substantives you occupy yourself in an
especial manner, as more may be done with them
than with any of the other parts of speech;
while as to the words with two meanings, you
must be in a bad state indeed, or have particularly
ill luck, if you fail to get something out
of them.

Suppose that you are going in for a day's
riddling—your dinner depending on the success
of your efforts. I take your Dictionary, and
open it at hap-hazard. You open, say, among
the Fs, and you go to work.

You make several stoppages as you go down
the column. You pause naturally at the word
Felt. It is a past participle of the verb to feel,
and it is a substance used in making hats. You
press it hard. Why is a hatter—No—Why may
a hatter invariably be looked upon as a
considerate person? Because he has always felt
for—No. That won't do. You go on. "Fen"—
a chance here for a well-timed thing about the
Fenian Brotherhood. This is worth a struggle,
and you make a desperate one. A Fen is a
marsh. In a marsh there is mud. Why was
it always to be expected that the Irish rebels
must ultimately stick in the mud? Because
theirs was a Fen-ian movement.—Intolerable!
Yet you are loth to abandon the subject. A
Fen is a Morass. More-ass. Why is an Irish
rebel more ass than knave? No, again it won't
do!

Disconsolate, but dogged, you go on till you
arrive at "Fertile." Fer-tile. Tile—Tile, a Hat.
Why is a Hat made of Beaver, like land that
always yields fine crops? Because it may be
called Fertile (Fur-tile). That will do. Not
first-class, but it will do. Riddling is very like
fishing. Sometimes you get a small trout,
sometimes a large one. This is a small trout, but it
shall go into the basket, nevertheless. And now
you are fairly warming to your work. You come
to "Forgery." You again make a point.
Forgery. For-gery—For Jerry. A complicated
riddle of a high order. Intricate, and of the
Coleridge kind. Why—No, If—If a gentleman,
having a favourite son of tender years, named
Jeremiah, were in the course of dessert to put a
pear in his pocket, stating, as he did so, that the
fruit was intended for his beloved boy, why,
in making such an explanation, would he mention
a certain act of felony once punishable by
death?—Because he would say that it was
Forgery—For Jerry. Into the basket.

It never rains but it pours. Another complex
one, of the same type. Fungus! If a
well-bred lady should, in sport, poke her cousin
Augustus in the ribs with her lilac and white
parasol, and hurt him, what vegetable product
would she mention in facetiously apologising?
Fungus. Fun Gus! In with it.

The Fs being exhausted, you take a short
rest. Then, screwing your faculties up afresh,
and seizing the Dictionary again, you open it
once more. Cs this time lie before you, a page
of Cs. You pause, hopeful, at corn. The
word has two meanings, it ought to answer.
It shall be made to answer. This is a case of
a peculiar kind. You determine to construct a