piece of the
shape of Fig. 1, 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 Fig. 2. Stick the peg in the apple as in
Fig. 3, 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 in
the same way as you would the cotton, 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.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

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.

A RIDDLE IN RHYME.

On one occasion, while at a dinner party, Dr. O. W. Holmes composed the
following riddle:

"My initials show my date to be
The morning of the Christian year;
Though fatherless, as all agree,
I am a father, it is clear:
A mother too, beyond dispute;
And when my son comes,
He's a fruit.