The “organized games” they make them play in the parks nowadays--they work in the same direction; so does the regular county council schooling; so does the scout movement. The fact is, boys are not left to themselves the way they used to be; everybody goes fussing about and telling them to do this and that, when they want to be doing something else--something of their own; that’s why many games are being forgotten. I don’t know a single boy who really cares for “organized games” the way a man does; even Aunt Eliza can’t bring herself to believe in the system over-much, though she likes to think it keeps the youngsters out of mischief. And it all comes from thinking that boys think the same as we think--which they don’t; or ought to learn to think the same as we think--which they oughtn’t. Because the right kind of boy thinks differently from the right kind of man about games and everything else. And so he ought. To prove that they still can invent, you need only watch them at their picture-games--played with cigarette-cards and all of them, of course, absolutely new, seeing that these cards were quite unknown up to a few years ago. These picture games have helped to do away with marbles, for two reasons: firstly, the boys are keener on them because they’re more exciting; and secondly, they’re cheaper. You have to pay for marbles. But you don’t pay for fag-pictures: you mump them, see? And here the difference between our games and those of richer people comes in. The more expensive their games are, the more they like to play them; they don’t seem to care about sports that are played with nothing at all--the dearness is what makes everybody want to go in for them; whereas with our boys a game can only be played if it’s cheap, and if it costs nothing at all--why, then it becomes really popular, or fashionable--as the case may be. Now fag-cards are cheap, and no mistake. That’s why you can play so many games with them--EGGS IN THE BUSH, and SNAP, and BANKER (or BANK), and NEAREST THE WALL TAKES, and NEAREST THE WALL SPINS UP, and SEVENS (quite a new kind), and SCALING UP THE RING, and SCALING UP THE LINE, and UNDER THE HAT, and GETTING IN THE RING (that’s a paving-flag, and the game is also called IN THE SQUARE), and OVERLAPPINGS, and IN THE RING FARTHEST, and POKE IN THE HOLE, and DROP THEM (or DROPS), and SKATE THEM, and PICTURE OR BLANK, and WALLIE (or UP THE WALL), and PITCHING IN THE BLOCK (or PITCHER), and PITCHING UNDER, and SLAP-DAP, and SCRAPINGS, and TIPPING IN THE HOLE, and BLOWINGS (also called BLOWS or BLOWUMS: you need an outside window-sill for this), and TOUCH-CARD, and GETTING ON, and INNERS AND OUTERS, and THUMBS, and SHOWS-UP, and KNOCK ’EM DOWN, and DICINGS, and WATERFALLS (or SNOWFALLS) and SPANS (or SPANNERS)--there’s thirty of them, anyhow.