NO THIS IS NOT A picture of a little cigarette fiend blowing smoke rings; it is simply an illustrated riddle about which there was considerable smoke and very petty fire.
According to the newspapers a certain bright young school mistress used to amuse her pupils by sketching illustrated riddles upon the blackboard, one of which was the picture shown, which, by the addition of six straight marks will tell just what that little boy is saying.
Well, it transpired that a certain muddle-pated dominie who had never heard of this famous old puzzle, got it mixed up with an old chestnut about reading mad dog backwards, which he was familiar with, and actually brought the puzzle into court to have the school mistress discharged!
The puzzle, as you all know, is to add six straight marks to the eleven noughts, so as to tell us just what that little boy said to the dog, hence the name of the noughty (not naughty) riddle.
In the “naughty” puzzle six straight lines will make the naughts read, “Good dog do go.”
2.
I was reading the account of a man in a boat who saved himself by throwing everything overboard, and as his better half was not mentioned in the salvage, it struck me that a literal interpretation of the account, was suggestive of a good puzzle theme. The picture is a faithful description of the scene as described by the survivors, but the puzzle is to discover the locality concealed in the explanation of the frantic husband.
That saving life puzzle conceals the name of Astoria.
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