Now small children don’t invent games (it’s the older ones who do that) and so they carry on a good few which used to be played long ago and which the others don’t care for any more. That accounts for the queer sports you see among the kids. One of them is KING OF THE BARBARY, where one party captures a “castle” made of the other children holding their hands together. Another is GREEN MAN RISE-O, a very old game; it goes like this:-- “A boy has to get don and put some gass over him and run out and call out geren man rays and he got to fine [find] you--” Perhaps this is clearer:-- “The way we play the game of greenman one of us lay down and cover his self with grass and the others run out and hide then they say greenman greenman rise up then he gets up and trys to catch them and the last one thats cort goes it--” For GREEN MAN RISE-O you have to go to the park, nowadays; but if you can’t go to the park, and want to play it in the street, this is how you do:-- “A boy as got to lay down and all the others have to put thier coats on him and then they have to say green man rise up and if he see a boy he as got to say one, two, three, and the last one as to go it--” --in fact, it becomes like DEAD MAN’S RISE, for lack of grass. In COCK ROBIN IS DEAD all the children who are playing have to arm themselves with shields (for which they use saucepan-lids) and with bows and arrows; and some of the bows are worth looking at--made of string, they are, and half a barrel-hoop or a whalebone out of their big sister’s stays--if she wears any. Another of these sports is an old witch-game called TO BECKLES TO BECKLES (?Beccles in Suffolk). It is played like this: “The children form a ring, and two in the middle. One is a witch and the other is a girl. The children dance round once. Then the girl in the ring says, “To Beckles to Beckles to get some wood.” Old witch says: “What for.” Girl: “To boil the pot.” Witch: “What for.” Girl: “To cook the fowl.” Witch: “Where did you get it?” Girl: “From your yard.” At this a race ensues, until the girl is caught by the witch.” GROTTOES--May sport--are built heart-shaped or square or round, with an edge of grass (if you can get it) filled up with picture-cards and oyster-shells and old scent bottles or anything else that looks pretty. It’s just a dodge for mumping halfpennies; and not a bad one, either. They come up to you and say “Remember the grotto”--meaning Pay up. Speaking for myself, I generally forget the grotto--meaning Go to blazes. But some people pay up, and I once saw Mr. Perkins give them sixpence! He was a bit all right, that evening--must have been....