This will, at first glance, look like an impossibility, but if you find the middle of the top end of the cross (Fig. 215), and lay a straight-edge from the middle point E, touching the corner F, and rule the line E F G, then rule a line from H to F, and cut where the lines are ruled, you will have four irregular pieces, A, B, C, and D, which you may fit together in the form of a square (Fig. 216). This is amusement enough for one rainy day, and for the next one you may try something more artistic, and consequently more difficult and interesting. CHAPTER XIX. HOW TO PREPARE AND GIVE A BOYS’ CHALK-TALK. A natural taste or talent for art is almost universal. If any of my readers doubt this statement let them supply all the youngsters in their neighborhood with colored chalks and note the result. My word for it, there will not be a paving-flag, wall or fence in the ward, which offers an opportunity for a picture, which will not be profusely decorated with brilliantly colored, grotesque figures. We are all Born Artists. The truth is that the ability and desire to draw, come just as natural to a child as its ability and desire to talk. [Illustration: FIGS. 217 and 218.--The Drawing-board.] That almost all children learn to talk with more or less fluency, while few learn to draw with any approach to skill, is because talking is encouraged and systematically taught from earliest infancy, while drawing is discouraged, and has been ever since the days of old Sakya-Muni, 400 years before the Christian era. Sakya, the narrow-minded old heathen, thought it detrimental to progress in virtue to waste one’s time with pencil or brush. And to-day, in the gray light of the dawn of the twentieth century, boys are often forbidden to draw and few are encouraged in the practice, so that, in fear of punishment, the youngsters give vent to their artistic feelings by slyly decorating the flags, walls, and fences. [Illustration: FIG. 219.--A Chalk-Talker.] Art will never reach the proper standard until these little “chalk-talkers” are encouraged, and taught to handle their chalk with the same skill with which they are taught to use their tongues. The Name Chalk-Talk was invented by Frank Beard, D.D., the veteran cartoonist, lecturer, and college professor, and it is the title of his first public lecture, but since then it has grown to be a popular name, so that whenever a speaker illustrates what he has to say by pictures, drawn before the audience, the entertainment is called a chalk-talk. [Illustration: FIGS. 220-226.--The Character of Lines.] Besides the ability to stand before an audience and talk, it is absolutely necessary to have some little knowledge of drawing, before one can hope to make a success in this field. However, any lad, with ordinary ability, can Learn by Practise to draw well enough to give an interesting show, suitable for the school-room, Sunday-school, or for a drawing-room entertainment.