(_b_) The server may not take a bisque after a fault, but the striker-out may do so. One or more bisques may be given to increase or diminish other odds. _Half fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the second, fourth, and every subsequent alternate game of a set. _Fifteen_ is one stroke given at the beginning of every game of a set. _Half thirty_ is one stroke given at the beginning of the first game, two strokes given at the beginning of the second game; and so on, alternately, in all the subsequent games of the set. _Thirty_ is two strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set. _Half forty_ is two strokes given at the beginning of the first game, three strokes given at the beginning of the second game; and so on, alternately, in all the subsequent games of the set. _Forty_ is three strokes given at the beginning of every game of a set. _Half court:_ The players may agree into which half court, right or left, the giver of the odds shall play; and the latter loses a stroke if the ball returned by him drops outside any of the lines which bound that half court. THE BALLS. The balls shall measure not less than 2-15/32 inches, nor more than 2½ inches in diameter; and shall weigh not less than 1-15/16 oz., nor more than 2 oz. [Illustration] [Illustration: The May-Pole Dance.] CHAPTER VI. MAY-DAY. Ho! the merrie first of Maie Bryngs the daunce and blossoms gaie, To make of lyfe a holiday. IN the merry heart of youth the old song still finds an echo, and this day, with its relics of pagan customs, celebrating, in the advent of spring, nature’s renewed fertility, is a festival full of fun for the children. Some of the ceremonies of May-day, handed down from generation to generation, were brought to America in old colonial days by the English, but owing, perhaps, to the stern puritanical training of most of the early settlers, the customs did not thrive here as in the mother country, and many of them have died out altogether. May-day is one of the many holidays still celebrated, that originated among the pagans ages ago, and it is said that the practice of choosing a May-queen and crowning her with flowers is a remnant of the ceremonies in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers, which were held in Rome the last four days of April and the first of May. There was, at one time, a very pretty custom observed in Merrie England of fastening bunches of flowering shrubs and branches of sycamore and hawthorn upon the doors of those neighbors whose good lives and kindly habits were thus recognized by their friends. The maids and matrons of England formerly had a way of their own of observing the day. On the first of May they would all go trooping out with the earliest rays of the morning sun, to bathe their faces in the magic dew, which glistened upon the grass once a year only, and was supposed to render the features moistened with it beautiful for the next twelve months.