You have a lump of greyish clay and a saucer of water and certain small tools of wood (for which I cannot discover the slightest use in the world) given you, and Euphemia puts on a very winning bib. Then, moistening the clay until it acquires sufficient plasticity, and incidentally splashing your cuffs and coat-sleeves with an agreeably light tinted mud, you set to work. At first people are a little disgusted at the apparent dirtiness of the employment, and also perhaps rather diffident. The eldest lady says weakly deprecatory things, and the feeblest male is jocular after his wont. But it is remarkable how soon the charm of this delightful occupation seizes hold of you. For really the sensations of moulding this plastic matter into shape are wonderfully and quite unaccountably pleasing. It is ever so much easier than drawing things--"anyone can do it," as the advertisement people say--and the work is so much more substantial in its effects. Technical questions arise. In moulding a head, do you take a lump and fine it down, or do you dab on the features after the main knob of it is shaped? So soon as your guests realise the plastic possibilities before them, a great silence, a delicious absorption comes over them. Some rash person states that he is moulding an Apollo, or a vase, or a bust of Mr. Gladstone, or an elephant, or some such animal. The wiser ones go to work in a speculative spirit, aiming secretly at this perhaps, but quite willing to go on with that, if Providence so wills it. Buddhas are good subjects; there is a certain genial rotundity not difficult to attain, and the pyramidal build of the idol is well suited to the material. You can start a Buddha, and hedge to make it a loaf of bread if the features are unsatisfactory. For slender objects a skeletal substructure of bent hairpins or matches is advisable. The innate egotism of the human animal becomes very conspicuous. "His tail is too large," says the lady with the fish, in self-criticism. "I haven't put his tail on yet--that's his trunk," answers the young man with the elephant. [Illustration]