‘Well, it was a quite shocking, I must say — there was blood everywhere!’ Alfred Hitchcock began suddenly from the rear of the elevator. We were in the New York St. Regis Hotel, heading down to the lobby. There was as light flush to his cheeks from the several frozen dauquiris he had just drunk in his suite. The elevator had just stopped and three people dressed for the evening had joined us, and immediately Mr. Hitchcock had started to speak, sounding as though he were in midsentence and projecting in that careful and familiar TV tone of his.

He went on, ‘There was as stream of blood coming from his ear and another from his mouth.’ The people had recognized him immediately, but now they seemed purposely to avoid looking at him. He went right on, gazing beatifically ahead of him as the elevator stopped again and another well-dressed couple came aboard: ‘Of course, there was a huge pool of blood on the floor and his clothes were spattered with it — Oh, it was a horrible mess.’

No one on the elevator, it seemed, was breathing. ‘Blood all around! Well, I looked at the poor man and and I said, “Good God, what happened to you?”‘ At that point the elevator doors opened onto the lobby, and Hitchcock said, ‘Do you know what he told me?’ and then paused. After a moment, and quite reluctantly, the other passengers moved out of the elevator and then looked back at the director as we walked away.

After several foggy moments, I asked, ‘Well, what did he say?’ and Hitchcock smiled benevolently, taking my arm, and said, ‘Oh, nothing — that’s just my elevator story.’

— Peter Bogdonavich, Who the Devil Made It, 1997

The world’s most dangerous golf hole is at Camp Bonifas in South Korea. It’s just south of the demilitarized zone, it’s a par 3, and it’s surrounded on three sides by live minefields.

I’ll wait over here.

Take any twenty-one cards, and ask a person to choose one from them. [Deal] them in three heaps, and ask the person who selected the card in which heap it is placed. Gather them up, and put the heap containing the chosen card between the other two. Do this twice more, and the chosen card will be found the eleventh from the top.

— Alfred Elliott, The Playground and the Parlour, 1868

A good American misprint was the following, which is warranted as true and genuine. It occurred in the proof-sheets of a scientific treatise. The sentence, as written by the author, ran as follows: ‘Filtration is sometimes assisted by the use of albumen.’ This came out as: ‘Flirtation is sometimes arrested by the use of aldermen.’

— Patrick Maxwell, Pribbles and Prabbles, 1906

The following is a good catch: lay a wager with a person that to three observations you will put to him, he will not reply ‘a bottle of wine.’ Then begin with some common-place remark, such as, ‘We have had a fine, or wet, day to-day,’ as it may be; he will answer, of course, ‘a bottle of wine.’ You then make another remark of the same kind, as, ‘I hope we shall have as fine or finer to-morrow,’ to which he will reply, as before, ‘a bottle of wine.’ You must then catch him very sharply, and say, ‘Ah! there, sir! you’ve lost your wager;’ and the probability is, if he be not aware of the trick, he will say ‘Why, how can you make that out?’ or something similar, forgetting that, though a strange one, it is the third observation you have made.

— Samuel Williams, The Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations, 1847