oon; and the harmless art of knucklebones has seen
the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the United States. It may
still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else, I am persuaded;
for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside, and was defeated
lamentably; its charm being quite local, like a country wine that
cannot be exported.

The idle manner of it was this:

Toward the end of September, when school-time was drawing near and the
nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our respective
villas, each equipped with a tin bull's-eye lantern. The thing was so
well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain;
and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows
with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the
waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the
game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin;
they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers;
their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a
boy with a bull's-eye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The
fishermen used lanterns about their boats, and it was from them, I
suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs were not bull's-eyes,
nor did we ever play at being fishermen. The police carried them at
their belts, and we had plainly copied them in that; yet we did not
pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed, we may have had some
haunting thoughts of; and we had certainly an eye to past ages when
lanterns were more common, and to certain story-books in which we had
found them to figure very largely. But take it for all in all, the
pleasure of the thing was substantive; and to be a boy with a
bull's-eye under his top-coat was good enough for us.

When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious "Have you got
your lantern?" and a gratified "Yes!" That was the shibboleth, and
very needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory
contained, none could recognize a lantern-bearer, unless (like the
pole-cat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the
belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above
them--for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow of
the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would
be unbuttoned and the bull's-eyes discovered; and in the chequering
glimmer, under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a