The Puzzler

MISSING LINKS

(Acknowledgments to Mike Shenk)

Sixteen clue answers are one letter too short for their places in the diagram. In entering each such answer, solvers must leave one diagram square empty; the location ot the empty square will be made clear by the answer’s inability to intersect with a crossing word (which will also be one letter too short for its space). When the diagram is otherwise completed, there will be eight empty squares. Each of these can be filled with a letter that will make new words across and down. For example, it WOR_D crossed with S_EEK, you would fill in an L, making WORLD and SLEEK. The eight missing letters, when filled in and read column by column from left to right, will spell out the missing-links word. Clue answers include two proper nouns.

The answers to last months Puzzler appear on page 144.

ACROSS

1. Slight pastry turned about

5.Heaping portion’s beginning with one fish

10. Well-traveled dog eating mother’s fruit

11. Gathering about a nickel for a cap

12. keep quiet after Bachelor Party

14. Diggers of tunnels in dark spots

15. Joined rudest riots around University

16. Someone who can see the future has a pronounced advantage

18.Sprang for a kind of wine

21.Secures gin aboard ship

24. Artist caricatured singer

26.Small stolen picture

29.Loaded into vehicle, farm animal looked unhappy

32.Turn over information of interest to a phrenologist?

33.The last piece of pie is for you

35. Workers for a queen in topless clothing

36. Star is grave-sounding

37. True/False: a poet should be a help in the kitchen

38. Sources of starch in cooked treats

39. Computer input retrieved a bit

DOWN

1. Confound campaign

2. Departed from city, having alternative (two words)

3. New arrival in brambles, oddly

4. Hide thimble initially in part of window

5. Sits around front of saloon with lawmen

6. Rich spread set out and consumed

7. Rex interrupts penetrating prelude

8. Congress, in turning over vetoes

9. Great English poetry club making study of the planet

12. Fall pine

13. Donkey standing over wide hole 1 7. Intrinsically blue (two words)

19. Olympic event in field is customary

20. Following up Eastern merger?

22. Detects the existence of Palmetto State cuckoo nest

23. Tools for hewing about fifty shafts 25. In station, drank booze up

27. Routine religious garb

28. Love each American work of art

30. Head off angrier river mammal

31. In speech, apportioned a triangle

34.Laugh over Democrat getting conned

Notes The instructions above are for this month’s puzzle only. It is assumed that you know how to decipher clues. For a complete introduction to clue-solving, send an addressed, stamped envelope to The Atlantic Puzzler, 8 Arlington Street, Boston, Mass, 02116.

Answers to the October Puzzles

GO-BETWEENS”

Across. 1. MEDIUM; TE DEUM 5. B. B. KING; Bl KIN1 10. K-RATIONS’ OVATIONS 13. GALLOPER: WALL.OWER 14. EXILE: SMILE 15. LATEST; PATENT 16. REVIVED: DEVILED 18. SWEAR: SPEAK 21. FODDERS; DODGERS 22.CORNERS; HORNET S 25. SOWED; SOLID 27. CARVING: WARPING 30. POISON; ORISON 32. OT HER; I TTER 33. RIVERBED; REVERSED 34. DlsMOl NT: VLSCOl NT 35.SUREST; FOREST 36. TEASES: SENSES Dowrt. 1. TOWER (double del.) 2.1) ATIVE (d + rev.) 3. ITAL-I(AN)tS 4. MOANED (anag. — l) 6. IS-L-AND-S 7. KNOT (homophone) 8. IMPEDE (hidden) 9. GIRTHS (anag.) 11. ROME (homophone) 12. TE(NUR)E (run rev.) 17.ADO-PTION (point anag.) 19. POLRED (anag.) 20. RE(WOR)DS (row rev.) 22.CYPRES (anag.) 23. REIVER (anag. - e) 24. SA-I’EST 26. I.IT-Mi s (sum rev.) 28. NEON (anag.) 29.G-RIT.S (stir rev.) 31.SERE (hidden)

ACROSTIC NO. 3

“To capture . . . puppetlike pathos, Chaplin (a devotee of ballet and peisonal friend of Pavlova) adopted from the first the foot postures of classical ballet. Thus he could have the aura of Spectre de la Rose shimmering around his clown getup.”

—M(arshall) McLuhan, Understanding Media