Shandygaff: A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters, interspersed with Short Stories & Skits, the whole most Diverting to the ReaderMorley, Christopher
General
Shandygaff: A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters, interspersed with Short Stories & Skits, the whole most Diverting to the Reader
Morley, Christopher
Essays; Short stories
Dear little Ingo! At the age when so many small boys are pert, impudent,
self-conscious, he was the simplest, happiest, gravest little creature.
His hobby was astronomy, and often I would find him sitting quietly in a
corner with a book about the stars. On clear evenings we would walk
along the road together, in the mountain hush that was only broken by
the brook tumbling down the valley, and he would name the constellations
for me. His little round head was thrilled through and through by the
immense mysteries of space; sometimes at meal times he would fall into a
muse, forgetting his beef and gravy. Once I asked him at dinner what he
was thinking of. He looked up with his clear gray-blue eyes and flashing
smile: "_Von den Sternen_!" ("Of the stars.")
The time after supper was reserved for games, in which Wolfgang, Ingo's
smaller brother (aged seven), also took part. Our favourite pastimes
were "Irrgarten" and "Galgenspiel," in which we found enormous
amusement. Galgenspiel was Ingo's translation of "Hangman," a simple
pastime which had sometimes entertained my own small brother on rainy
days; apparently it was new in Germany. One player thinks of a word, and
sets down on paper a dash for each letter in this word. It is the task
of the other to guess the word, and he names the letters of the alphabet
one by one. Every time he mentions a letter that is contained in the
word you must set it down in its proper place in the word, but every
time he mentions a letter that is not in the word you draw a portion of
a person depending from a gallows; the object of course being for him to
guess the word before you finish drawing the effigy. We played the game
entirely in German, and I can still see Ingo's intent little face bent
over my preposterous drawings, cudgelling his quick and happy little
brain to spot the word before the hangman could finish his grim task.
"Quick, Ingo!" I would cry. "You will get yourself hung!" and he would
laugh in his own lovable way. There was never a jollier way of learning
a foreign language than by playing games with Ingo.
The other favourite pastime was drawing mazes on paper, labyrinths of
winding paths which must be traversed by a pencil point. The task was to
construct a maze so complicated that the other could not find his way
out, starting at the middle. We would sit down at opposite ends of the
room to construct our mysteries of blind alleys and misleading passages,
then each one would be turned loose in the "irrgarten" drawn by the
other. Ingo would stand at my side while I tried in obstinate stupidity
to find my way through his little puzzle; his eager heart inside his
sailor blouse would pound like a drum when I was nearing the dangerous
places where an exit might be won. He would hold his breath so audibly,
and his blue eyes would grow so anxious, that I always knew when not to
make the right turning, and my pencil would wander on in hopeless
despair until he had mercy on me and led me to freedom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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