More from The Sunny Side, by A. A. Milne:

***

"Do think, Samuel," I interrupted, "how much more splendid if you could be the only man who had seen Monte Carlo without going inside the rooms. And then... when your friends at the club ask if you've had any luck at the tables, you just say coldly, 'What tables?'"

"Preferably in Latin," said Archie. "Quae mensae?"

***

Of course in my review I said all the usual things. I said that Mr. Blank's attitude to life was "subjective rather than objective" … and a little lower down that it was "objective rather than subjective." I pointed out that in his treatment of the major theme he was a neo-romanticist, but I suggested that, on the other hand, he had nothing to learn from the Russians—or the Russians had nothing to learn from him; I forget which.

***

"My dear," I said, "I have been asked to deliver a lecture."

"Whatever on?" asked Celia.

"Anything I like. The last person lectured on 'The Minor Satellites of Jupiter,' and the one who comes after me is doing 'The Architecture of the Byzantine Period,' so I can take something in between."

***

HOLDING THE LEMON

For this trick you want a lemon and a pack of ordinary playing-cards. Cutting the lemon in two, you hand half to one member of your audience and half to another, asking them to hold the halves up in full view of the company. Then, taking the pack of cards in your own hands, you offer it to a third member of the party, requesting him to select a card and examine it carefully. When he has done this he puts it back in the pack, and you seize this opportunity to look hurriedly at the face of it, discovering (let us say) that it is the five of spades. Once more you shuffle the pack; and then, going through the cards one by one, you will have no difficulty in locating the five of spades, which you will hold up to the company with the words "I think this is your card, sir"—whereupon the audience will testify by its surprise and appreciation that you have guessed correctly.

It will be noticed that, strictly speaking, the lemon is not a necessary adjunct of this trick; but the employment of it certainly adds an air of mystery to the initial stages of the illusion, and this air of mystery is, after all, the chief stock-in-trade of the successful conjurer.

***

[Ending with a Cauliflower dept., As-an-Insult division]

"Cauliflower!" shrieked Gaspard Volauvent across the little table in the estaminet. His face bristled with rage.

"Serpent!" replied Jacques Rissole, bristling with equal dexterity.

***

I also recommend these two pieces:

"The Way Down" (a quasi-precursor to this JC-E piece: http://www.salticid.com/jce/secondpost.html)

"The Arrival of Blackman's Warbler" (a precursor to the Elwitt family "Bird-ictionary")

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13441/pg13441-images.html