o much
cover afforded by the books and vast intervals of waiting while the
players took aim. And yet there was something about it.... It was a
game crying aloud for improvement.

Improvement came almost simultaneously in several directions. First
there was the development of the Country. The soldiers did not stand
well on an ordinary carpet, the Encyclopedia made clumsy cliff-like
"cover", and more particularly the room in which the game had its
beginnings was subject to the invasion of callers, alien souls,
trampling skirt-swishers, chatterers, creatures unfavourably impressed
by the spectacle of two middle-aged men playing with "toy soldiers" on
the floor, and very heated and excited about it. Overhead was the day
nursery, with a wide extent of smooth cork carpet (the natural terrain
of toy soldiers), a large box of bricks--such as I have described in
Floor Games--and certain large inch-thick boards.

It was an easy task for the head of the household to evict his
offspring, annex these advantages, and set about planning a more
realistic country. (I forget what became of the children.) The thick
boards were piled up one upon another to form hills; holes were bored
in them, into which twigs of various shrubs were stuck to represent
trees; houses and sheds (solid and compact piles of from three to six
or seven inches high, and broad in proportion) and walls were made with
the bricks; ponds and swamps and rivers, with fords and so forth
indicated, were chalked out on the floor, garden stones were brought in
to represent great rocks, and the "Country" at least of our perfected
war game was in existence. We discovered it was easy to cut out and bend
and gum together paper and cardboard walls, into which our toy bricks
could be packed, and on which we could paint doors and windows, creepers
and rain-water pipes, and so forth, to represent houses, castles, and
churches in a more realistic manner, and, growing skilful, we made
various bridges and so forth of card. Every boy who has ever put
together model villages knows how to do these things, and the attentive
reader will find them edifyingly represented in our photographic
illustrations.

There has been little development since that time in the Country. Our
illustrations show the methods of arrangement, and the reader will see
how easily and readily the utmost variety of battlefields can be made.
(It is merely to be remarked that a too crowded Country makes the guns
inef