of the _Forty
Thieves_, and bewildered Cassim beating about the walls. And so I
quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savouring the interest. Believe
me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and though I preferred the
taste when I took cream with it, I used often to go without, because the
cream dimmed the transparent fractures.

Even with games, this spirit is authoritative with right-minded
children. It is thus that hide-and-seek has so pre-eminent a
sovereignty, for it is the wellspring of romance, and the actions and
the excitement to which it gives rise lend themselves to almost any sort
of fable. And thus cricket, which is a mere matter of dexterity,
palpably about nothing and for no end, often fails to satisfy infantile
craving. It is a game, if you like, but not a game of play. You cannot
tell yourself a story about cricket; and the activity it calls forth can
be justified on no rational theory. Even football, although it admirably
simulates the tug and the ebb and flow of battle, has presented
difficulties to the mind of young sticklers after verisimilitude; and I
knew at least one little boy who was mightily exercised about the
presence of the ball, and had to spirit himself up, whenever he came to
play, with an elaborate story of enchantment, and take the missile as a
sort of talisman bandied about in conflict between two Arabian nations.

To think of such a frame of mind is to become disquieted about the
bringing up of children. Surely they dwell in a mythological epoch, and
are not the contemporaries of their parents. What can they think of
them? what can they make of these bearded or petticoated giants who look
down upon their games? who move upon a cloudy Olympus, following unknown
designs apart from rational enjoyment? who profess the tenderest
solicitude for children, and yet every now and again reach down out of
their altitude and terribly vindicate the prerogatives of age? Off goes
the child, corporally smarting, but morally rebellious. Were there ever
such unthinkable deities as parents? I would give a great deal to know
what, in nine cases out of ten, is the child's unvarnished feeling. A
sense of past cajolery; a sense of personal attraction, at best very
feeble; above all, I should imagine, a sense of terror for the untried
residue of mankind; go to make up the attraction that he feels. No
wonder, poor little heart, with such a weltering world in front of him,
if he clings to the hand he know