To obtain such a stick the primitive man probably had to do a good deal of hacking at the bough of a hard oak or tough ash, with no better knife than a bit of sharp flint. Having secured his stick, the next thing was to keep it, and he doubtless had to defend himself against the assaults of envious fellow-creatures possessed of inferior sticks. Thus we can imagine that the birth of quarter-staff play--not much _play_ about it in those days--was a very simple affair; and we recognize in it the origin and foundation of all the sword exercises, and all the games in which single-stick, lance, and bayonet play a prominent part. As the question of who picked up the first stone and threw it at his fellow-man, or when the first branch of a tree was brought down on the unsuspecting head of another fellow-man, are questions for learned men to decide, and are of no real importance, I shall not allow myself to go on with any vague speculations, but shall turn at once to an old English sport which, though sometimes practised at assaults-at-arms in the present day, takes us back to Friar Tuck, Robin Hood, and "Maid Marian, fair as ivory bone, Scarlet and Much and Little John." CHAPTER II. THE QUARTER-STAFF. According to Chambers's "Encyclopaedia," the quarter-staff was "formerly a favourite weapon with the English for hand-to-hand encounters." It was "a stout pole of heavy wood, about six and a half feet long, shod with iron at both ends. It was grasped in the middle by one hand, and the attack was made by giving it a rapid circular motion, which brought the loaded ends on the adversary at unexpected points." "Circular motion" and "shod with iron" give a nasty ring to this description, and one pictures to one's self half a barge-pole, twirled--"more Hibernico"--with giant fingers, bearing down on one. Whether the fingers of our ancestors were ever strong enough to effect this single-handed twirling or not must remain a matter of doubt, but we may rest assured that in the quarter-staff we have, probably, the earliest form of offensive weapon next to the handy stone. If Darwin is correct, we can easily imagine one of our gorilla ancestors picking up a big branch of a tree with which to hit some near member of his family. This, to my mind, would be playing elementary quarter-staff, and the game would have advanced a step if the assaulted one--possibly the lady gorilla--had seized another branch and retaliated therewith. The modern quarter-staff is supposed to be rather longer than the six and a half feet prescribed by the above-quoted authority, and I imagine it originally derived its name from being grasped with one hand at a quarter of its length from the middle, and with the other hand at the middle.