“Two lines about 6 ft apart are drorn. A boy first puts his stone on a place half-way between the two, he spins his top picks it up and makes it spin in the palm of his hand and chips his stone towards the line. The first boy who gets his stone beyond the line he wins.” I used to know quite a good deal about tops, but it’s quite a while since I played, and I have forgotten half their names, and couldn’t describe them if I tried. I can only remember peg-tops, whipping-tops, mushrooms, klondykes, tomtits, boxers (made of boxwood), racing tops, corkscrews, clodhoppers, humming tops, Russian tops, Jews’ tops, Japan tops (rather flatter at the end than the usual kind), French tops (red and white on the top, with a little thing for tying a piece of string on, to spin with), and window-breakers, which are rather like mushrooms. _And_ the dumb-bargee. Ever heard of a dumb-bargee? It’s a kind of top after the style of a klondyke. It’s too heavy to rise from the ground like a racer. You simply can’t get a rise out of a dumb-bargee. Perhaps that accounts for the name. Because it’s easy enough to get a rise out of an ordinary bargee, isn’t it? And when you do, he’s not exactly what you call “dumb”, is he? Not the bargees I’ve known. And if you have no tops, you can make up games with your caps or boots or jackets. DEAD MAN’S RISE (also called DEAD MAN’S DARK SCENERY or COAT) is one of these jacket-games, where one party has to hide, covered up in their coats. Shoe-games are rather commoner--there’s SIZE OF YOUR BOOT (one boy has to be blindfolded for this), and BOOT IN THE TUB, and NAILS, and COBBLER COBBLER MEND MY SHOE. But the commonest are the cap-games. Here are some of them: CHIMNEY-POTS (or UPSETTING THE CHIMNEY); HAT UNDER THE MOON; MOUSE IN TRAP; SAUSAGE; KNOCK HIM DOWN DONKEY; PULL FOR THE SHORE SAILOR; SUGAR AND MILK; HOP O’ MY THUMB; TOUCH-CAP. In the three last you have to go “through the mill”, if you fail. NUTS IN CAP is played with caps and crackers (Spanish nuts); in HITTING THE SUN you must throw your cap at your opponent’s at about twelve yards distance; other cap-games are QUOITS (with folded-up caps), and FIRE ENGINES, and SHYING OVER THE MOON, and SHOOTING THE STARS, and PILING THE DONKEY, and CAP IT, and WHERE’S THIS LITTLE HAT TO GO, and SALLY ROUND THE JAM-POT (with piled-up caps), and BALL IN CAP, and RUN A MILE FOR A HALF-PENNY, and HOOK AND CAP, and HOT SOUP, and FOX COME OUT OF YOUR DEN, and THROW OVER, and MILLER’S SACK, and WHACK CAP, and HATCHING EGGS, and UNDER THE GARTER. All these are played with caps, and some of them, such as FLIES (or SALLY) ROUND THE JAM-POT, are really duty-games, of which I must tell you later on.