Fagots for the fireside Author:Lucretia Peabody Hale Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THIRD BUNDLE OF FAGOTS. Veebabidm. — Charade. — Theatrical Adjectives. — Conundrum. — Idiot's Joy. — Solutions Op Anagrams. THE next of the Fagot-parties m... more »et at Mrs. Chester's, and a large number of guests appeared. Each one bore a Fagot in hand,— a veritable stick of wood, which Mrs. Chester's lively fire seemed scarcely to need, but for which she could in the course of the evening find room in the ample fireplace in her large hall. " Have you guessed my Anagram ?" asked Mrs. Chester of Hector Brunton as he flung on his stick of wood. " Oh, yes!" he replied ; " but I had to go to the Antipodes for it." " Antipodes ! " Mrs. Chester exclaimed; " I never thought of making it out of ' Toadspiue.' " I believe we have invented the rule," she went on, " that the lady of the house shall be the one to set the literary blaze going, thoughthe rest of you to-night are warming us up for any entertainment with your actual Fagots. I bring forward for my Fagot the game of Ver- barium. Yes, Aspasia, I know what you are going to say, — some of you have played it before ; but I think that my method differs in some respects from the ordinary one, and it is at any rate so interesting a game that one who enjoys it may play it for weeks together without tiring of it, as I know from experience." " But, Mrs. Chester, we have not all played it! " " It is new to me." " And to me," cried one and another. " Will you please give us the direction." " Oh ! that is easily done," replied Mrs. Chester ; and she read the following directions : — " Verbarium (sometimes called Andkoscoggin). " A word is chosen, which each one of the company writes at the head of a sheet of paper. The game consists in making as many other words as possible, in a given time, out of the letters which form t...« less