me back the thoughtless joy of a hockey game,
would it? No, nor the delight of playing puss-in-the-corner, or
following a paper trail through the October woods, or yelling 'Daddy
on the castle, Daddy on the castle!' while we jumped on Frank Swain's
veranda and off again into his mother's flower-bed!"

"I trust not," said I. "Just what are you getting at?"

"This," answered Old Hundred: "that I, you, none of us, go into things
now for the sheer exuberance of our bodies and the sheer delight of
playing a game. We must have some ulterior motive--usually a sordid
one, getting money or downing the other fellow; and most of the time
we have to drive our poor, old rackety bodies with a whip. About the
time a man begins to vote, he begins to disintegrate. The rest of
life is gradual running down, or breaking up. The Hindoos were right."

"Old Hundred," said I, "you are something of an idiot. Those games of
ours were nature's school; nature takes that way to teach us how to
behave ourselves socially, how to conquer others, but mostly how to
conquer ourselves. We were men-pups, that's all. For Heaven's sake,
can't you have a pleasant afternoon thinking of your boyhood without
becoming maudlin?"

"You talk like a book by G. Stanley Hall," retorted Old Hundred. "No
doubt our games were nature's way of teaching us how to be men, but
that doesn't alter the fact that the process of being taught was
better than the process of putting the knowledge into practice. I hate
these folks who rhapsodize sentimentally over children as 'potential
little men.' Potential fiddle-sticks! Their charm is because they
_ain't_ men yet, because they are still trailing clouds of glory,
because they are nice, mysterious, imaginative, sensitive, nasty
little beasts. You! All you are thinking of is that dinner I owe you!
Well, come on, then, we'll go back into that monstrous heap of mortar
down there to the south, where there are no children who know how to
play, no tops, no marbles, no woods and ponds and bees' nests in the
fences, no Emily Ruggleses; where every building is, as you say, the
gravestone of a game, and the only sport left is the playing of the
market for keeps!"

He got up painfully. I got up painfully. We both limped. Down the hill
in silence we went. On the train Old Hundred lighted a cigar. "What do
you say to the club for dinner?" he asked. "I ought to go across to
the Bar Association afterward and look up some cases on that rebate