"My father sent me here with a staff, To speak to you, and not to laugh." "Methinks you smile." "Methinks I don't. I smooth my face with ease and grace, And set my staff in its proper place." If the staff-bearer laughed, he or she must take the chair; otherwise the next player continued the game. A third amusement is for girls to excite one another to laugh by gently pinching in succession the ears, nose, lips, etc., while making use of some ridiculous expression. This usage is alluded to more than three centuries ago by Rabelais. In a Swiss game, this performance is complicated by a jest. Each child pinches his neighbor's ear; but by agreement the players blacken their fingers, keeping two of the party in ignorance. Each of the two victims imagines it to be the other who is the object of the uproarious mirth of the company. No. 78. _Bachelor's Kitchen._ The children sit in a row, with the exception of one, who goes in succession to each child, and asks him what he will give to the bachelor's kitchen. Each answers what he pleases, as a saucepan, a mousetrap, etc. When all have replied, the questioner returns to the first child, and puts all sorts of questions, which must be answered by the article which he before gave to the kitchen, and by no other word. For instance, he asks, "What do you wear on your head?" "Mousetrap." The object is to make the answerer laugh, and he is asked a number of questions, until he either laughs or is given up as a hard subject. The questioner then passes to the next child, and so on through the whole row. Those who laugh, or add any other word to their answer, must pay a forfeit, which is redeemed in the same way as in other games. _Cambridge, Mass._ No. 79. _The Church and the Steeple._ Little girls, with appropriate motions of the closed fist, or of the inverted hand with raised fingers, say, Here is the church, Here is the steeple, Here is the parson, And all the people. An Italian finger-game well exhibits the different mental state of children in the two countries. The words are: "This is the Inferno, and this the Paradiso." The fingers of the two hands, crossed within, represent the disturbed world of wretchedness; the back of the hands, turned, where all is calm, typify Paradise. No. 80. _What Color?_ A tumbler of water and a thimble are required. One child is sent out of the room, and to each of the others a different color is allotted. The first is then expected to name the color of some child. If she succeeds in her guess, a thimbleful of water is thrown in her face. The guessing is continued till this takes place, when the thrower becomes the guesser for the next turn. _Cincinnati._ No. 81. _Beetle and Wedge._ There are games in which the guesser has only _Scogan's choice_[91] between two sorts of disaster.