Amid all the boredom that New Hampshire and the major presidential candidates generated Tuesday, there were generous moments of reprieve, and most of those moments were generated by a tantalizing slate of absurdist candidates.

In the voting booths in the cities, on the paper ballots in the hamlets and in any conspicuous public place where they could buttonhole the populace, the unknown vote-seekers were working their mischief and, basically, exorcising monotony.

* *

"Now, remember our slogan," Mrs. Stanley Arnold, wife of the Pick-N-Pay supermarket czar who is running for President, said as she preened herself in the reflection of the marble slab next to the elevator of the Hotel Carpenter in Manchester.

"Vote alphabetically."

Stanley Arnold is a businessman and active civic do-gooder from New York City who sought the Democratic nomination for Vice President in 1972, but who feels that, with the country's credit rating slipping as it is, there's no use being modest this time around. What America needs now, Arnold's campaign literature seems to be saying, is a good, deficit-dashing businessman.

So Arnold has set his sights higher in 1976, entering primaries in New Hampshire (where he garnered 290 votes), Oregon and Wisconsin.

"My husband thinks it is critical that we get a brilliant man to convince the people of this country of the ways to solve our problems," Barbara Laing Arnold said steadfastly. "He's a brilliant speaker--never had a note in front of him...He worked for Adlai and for HHH. In 1968, he was chairman of three of Humphrey's committees. It's an incredible story of a brilliant man who has stood up. There're a lot of brilliant men around--Nader, Galbraith, Gardner--but they didn't want to take the abuse. Stanley's been a brilliant thinker for industry--he invented the Reader's Digest insert of the flag decal that you can tear out and put on car windows. He has a brilliant, inventive and practical mind, with an ability to articulate brilliant ideas very simply."

The elevator door opened and, with one last preening, Mrs. Arnold stepped in and disappeared, presumably heading for her husband's "brilliantly" located headquarters in an obscure room on the fourth floor.

* * *

Up in the Stark Room of the New Hampshire Highway Hotel in Concord, cloistered away from the hordes of straw-hat-waving Reagan supporters and robot-like Secret Servicemen below, a prayer meeting was in progress.

Some fifty followers of the Rev. Arthur Blessit, a high priest of the Jesus Movement formerly known as the "Chaplain of Sunset Strip" in Hollywood, Ca., wore crosses instead of hats, and knelt silently on the carpet of the sterile conference room.

There were no Secret Service men at the door, either, since Blessit has not sought matching funds or aid of any kind from the Federal Election Commission in Washington. "I don't believe in accepting federal money," the evangelist explained, saying that the $27,000 he has spent on his campaign over the last year and a half has come out of his own pocket.

Two reporters, searching for the luxurious facilities Ronald Reagan was providing the press with on election night, wandered by in the hall outside and stopped for a gander at the devout assembly.

A pair of attractive 24-year-old, six-feet-tall twins from Lawrence, Mass., clad in long, flowered dresses, stood up, took the reporters by the arms, introduced themselves ("Hi, I'm Jan and this is Josey") and insisted that the two reporters have some fruit punch and "meet Arthur."