(Meta-meta puzzle solution)

Meta-puzzle for Round 7

by Marc Moskowitz

Saturday the boss went out for drinks.

The bartender, a large genial Irishman who's happy to assist you, remembers him. "He was a regular here, always left a couple dollars as a tip. Nice guy. Saturday, he comes in here with a date--real knockout, she was--and buys drinks for the two of them. But here's what blows my mind: he spends the whole time doodling on the napkins instead of paying attention to her.

I kept 'em in case he came back, thought they might be part of his business or something. Wanna see 'em?"


The puzzle answers for this round are:

  1. LADY ASTOR
  2. ONE HUNDRED FIFTY
  3. JAYHAWKS
  4. EINSTEINIUM
  5. SECOND PERSON PLURAL
  6. FISCAL YEAR
  7. FORTY-FIVE DEGREES
  8. HALIFAX
Each of these clues leads to a bigram (such as "KO" for "knockout" in the flavortext): or, reading down the columns, "MCKEYFNN PLUS EYES." The answer is MICKEY FINN (yet another kind of knockout).