The Traveler And The Bicyclist

Source: What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category: GAMES FOR A PARTY



"The Traveler" is a favorite variety of the "Family Coach." In this
game a player with a ready tongue is chosen as traveler, and the
others are given such names as landlord, bell-boy, clerk, waiter,
chambermaid, electric light, elevator, bed, supper, paper,
sitting-room, bedroom, steam-radiator, slippers, and so on. The
traveler is then supposed to arrive and give his orders. "Can I have a
room to-night? Good. And how soon will supper be ready? Ask the
bell-boy to take my satchels up to my room. Show me to my
room and send up the papers." And so on, each person named having
to stand up or be booked for a forfeit.

This game lends itself to various new forms. One might be called "The
Bicyclist" and run thus:--A player having been chosen as the
bicyclist, the others take as many bicycling names (or two names each
might add to the fun) as there are players. Thus--lamp, wick, oil,
handle-bars, spokes, tires, chain, pump, nuts, bell, hedges, fields,
sheep, roads, hill, dog. This settled, the bicyclist will begin his
story, something in this style:--

It looked so fine this morning that I determined to go for a
long ride. So I got out the pump and blew up the tires,
put the monkey-wrench to a few nuts, filled the lamp,
trimmed the wick, polished up the bell and the
handle-bars, and started off. The roads were perfect. The
fields were shining with dew, the hedges were sweet with
honey-suckle, and I skimmed along like the wind until
suddenly, at the turn at the foot of Claymore Hill, I rode
bang into a flock of sheep and came down with a smash. You
never saw such a ruin. The lamp and bell were lost
completely, the handle-bars were twisted into corkscrews,
the tires were cut to ribbons, the spokes looked like
part of a spider's web, my hands and my knees were cut, and
the worst of it was that the shepherd's dog mistook me for
an enemy and I had to beat him off with the monkey-wrench,
until the farmer heard the noise and came to the rescue.

During this story all the players named would, in the ordinary way,
stand up for a moment when their adopted names were mentioned, except
at the point when the accident occurs, and then every player bearing
the name of a part of the bicycle--the handle-bars, spokes, tires,
chain, air-pump, lamp, wick, bell, monkey-wrench, pump, nuts--should
fall to the ground.


Next: Drawing-room Acrobatics

Previous: Family Coach

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