question of rigs? Why don't they make little
blocks, as I used, out of firewood the honour-
able penknife scars are on my fingers yet.
If they want a cutter or a schooner now, they
must go and buy it at a shop, and get an
uninteresting toy of a thing, which they have no
vital interest in as a work of their own construc-
tion, and which they pay an enormous sum of
money for, into the bargain. And this brings
me, by-the-by, to another characteristic of my
boys. Money—they are always wanting money,
and in such vast amounts. I don't think they
would take a sixpence. I once had a sixpence
as a child, and was kept awake two nights fol-
lowing, thinking how I should invest it; my
boys, I solemnly believe, would not fall heavily
to the ground in a vertigo of surprise and awe
if I were to give them a golden sovereign apiece.

Why don't my boys get " characters" and go
mad with joy in colouring and tinselling them?
The planting of golden greaves upon the legs of
Mr. Osbaldiston as Hotspur, is a pleasure of a
kind unknown to this generation, and the want
of which is no light or trifling loss. Why don't
they make theatres and enact dramas, and push
the military on in strips, and work the curtain
with a tackle of their own inventing, and stage-
manage, and prompt, and speak the dialogue all
at once, as boys ought?

Why, last summer, when my old friend Hearty
was staying with me in the country, at the time
of the Midsummer holidays, we set to work one
day to make a kite for the boys! Bless my life
and soul, but Hearty and I were eager and
excited men that day, and were to be found
rushing about the house, and even all over the
village, in search of laths, paper, paste, string,
and all the other necessary ingredients of a kite.
You would have thought that Hearty, who is a
distinguished lawyer, had been making kites all
his life, and that he had never heard in the
whole course of his career of such a thing as a
"rule-nisi," or the proving of domicile; the only
thing in which his professional qualities came out
at all, being in a brisk and somewhat fierce argu-
ment with me on the relative merits of the diamond-
shaped kite, and the kite with a curved top: about
which we almost quarrelled. Here was this
eminent (and elderly) man entangling himself
in furlongs of string, sticking himself to sheets
of newspaper with accidental paste, cutting his
fingers in notching his laths, and generally in
such a state of eagerness about the kite as it
would have refreshed any person of well-regu-
lated mind to observe!

And what were my boys about, all this time?
Were they eager? Were they excited? Hang
it, were they even interested? Not a bit.
They deserted us. They actually deserted us.
They went and yawned about the stable. They
read the advertisements in Bradshaw's Guide.
After the first few minutes they ceased to take
any share in the undertaking which had been
got up solely with a view to their amusement.

Then, when the kite was at last completed,
when it proved lop-sided, and had to be weighted
with cunningly devised wings; when, this being

set right, it manifested a suicidal desire to
"pitch/' coming headforemost to the earth with
a mighty crash just at the hopeful moment of
its flight; when this tendency was remedied by
the tying of a ridi India silk handkerchief of
Hearty's to the end of the tail; and when, the
kite (there was a high wind), now without a fault,
sprang into the sky, without warning, and
snapping the string flew straight over the top
of the house and lodged in the tallest tree in
the shrubbery at the back, who was it at these
times that manifested emotion? Who was it
that was alternately hopeful and despairing,
triumphant and cast down? Who was it that
devised and executed the different remedies for
the different disasters as soon as they occurred?
Was it any of my boys? Was it one of the
"fellows" who were staying with them? No,
it was Hearty and I who did all these things, and
finally, when the kite had to be recovered from
unheard of altitudes in the shrubbery, it was
Hearty who mounted the tree, and it was I (the
father of the family) who gave him a leg up.

And now, having shown what my boys will
not do, suppose we inquire for a moment what
they will do. Will they sit about upon easy-
chairs? Oh yes. Will they haunt landing-
places, and halls, and passages, and reply, when
asked if they are going out, that they don't
know? Oh yes. Will they disport themselves
vaguely upon staircases? Oh yes. Will they
charge up and down the same, will they bluntly
bump against my study door (I am a studious
man), and bulge with crashes against the wooden
banisters? Oh yes. Will they do this when the
weather is fine and they might be out of doors,
but prefer remaining in; and will they in the
same state of the temperature read (evidently
without knowing or caring what) throughout
a whole day, and look swollen, pale, sleepy,
and stupified thereafter? Yes, good sir, they
will do all these tilings, and many more.

They will go to the play with Hearty and my-
self, and while we are convulsed with mirth at
Mr. Buckstoue's acting, they will not move a
muscle. Say, that the performance of the consum-
mate artist just named, may be over their heads;
well, sir, we take them to see a Pantomime. Are
they astounded at the transformation scene? Are
the extraordinary resources of Mr. Sketcherby,
which seem to know no limit, a subject of
astonishment to them? Is the Harlequin a
marvel of agility, the Columbine a vision of
loveliness, are the Clown and Pantaloon embodi-
ments of the humorous to my boys? Oh
dear no! They slept peacefully on the night pre-
ceding this visit to the play, they were able to
eat their dinners, and to discuss other subjects
than pantomimic subjects on the day of the treat (?)
itself, whilst, on their return home, the per-
formance was severely reviewed by these young-
sters as they sat at supper, and was treated not
only critically but contemptuously. When I
think of my own boyhood, and remember my
introduction to theatrical amusements, when I
remember a fevered infant who was unable to
sleep, and who refused nourishment from the