In these outbursts of laughing rowdyism we see more than an escape of pent-up energies, more than a mere overflow of “high spirits”; they are complicated by a new factor, something of the defiant temper of the rebel. A child of two has had some experience of real disobedience, and may be said to have developed simple ideas of order {204} and law. We may reasonably infer, then, that in this turbulent fun there is some consciousness of setting law at defiance. The presence of this new psychical factor is seen in the alteration of the laughing sounds themselves. In Ruth’s case, we are told, they were “rough” and unlike the natural and joyous utterance. It is further seen in the method of the fun, for, as Miss Shinn observes, Ruth “tried repeatedly to see how far she could go safely in roguish naughtiness”. I think we find in this behaviour a clear instance of laughter becoming an ingredient in the attitude of throwing off a customary restraint. It is the early analogue of the laughter of the rowdies bent on window-smashing, of the riotous enjoyment of the people at festal seasons when the lord of misrule holds sway. The degree of conscious defiance of order may, no doubt, vary greatly. In much of what we view as the disorderly mirth of a child this ingredient of the laughing mood may be small and sub-conscious; yet at times it grows distinct and prominent. Thus, Ruth, in the eleventh month, developed a special expression for the attitude of defiance when disobeying, namely, a comical face with a wrinkling of the nose, together with laughter. The boy C., early in the third year, would give out a laugh of a short mocking ring on receiving a prohibition, _e.g._, not to slap his dog companion. He would remain silent and laugh in a half-contemptuous way. Sometimes in his moods of defiance he would go so far as to strike a member of his family and then laugh. His laugh was sometimes highly suggestive of the mood of derision. In this note of warlike challenge we have a point of kinship with the “crowing” laughter of the victor. Yet it is doubtful whether a child at this early age reaches the {205} mental attitude of a mocking contempt. Preyer tells us that he has never observed scornful laughter within the first four years.[129]