Small strips of blotting-paper--this was our procedure--were taken, and moons of chloroform, quite similar to the eau-de-Cologne moons, were made on them from an unstoppered bottle of chloroform. These were inserted in the chip boxes while Arthur, the executioner, got the oxalic acid and a nib. With this lethal weapon he speared their unconscious thoraxes, and out came the setting-boards. Nocturnal expeditions for purposes of “sugaring” tree-trunks were even more exciting. We mixed beer and sugar, heating them together, and at dusk pasted trees in the garden with the compound which Watch found so delicious that if the jug containing it was left on the ground for a moment, he began lapping it up. On such sugaring nights I was allowed to sit up later than usual, and about ten o’clock the excited procession again started with more chip boxes, and a dark lantern, which was turned on to the sugared patches. There were the bright-eyed creatures of the night, drunkenly feasting, and Arthur enriched his pill-boxes with Silver Y and an occasional Golden Y, and rejected the Yellow Underwing, and grew taut over the Crimson Underwing, while I carried a butterfly net, and swooped with it at wandering moths which were attracted by the unveiled lantern carried by Maggie, and Watch wagged his tail and licked up gratefully the droppings from the sugared tree and any moths that might be on them. And then Beth would come out and say that “my Mamma” said that I must go to bed at once, and I usually didn’t. O happy nights! I think every day in those holidays must have lasted a week, and every month a year, for when I consider it, we surely spent the whole afternoons in playing “Pirates” in the garden. Theoretically now, as well as practically then, I believe that “Pirates,” a game evolved by the family generally, and speedily brought to its perfect and stereotyped form, was the best sporting invention, requiring no material implements, of modern time. What powers of the mind, what refinements of cunning, compared to which deer-stalking is mere child’s play, were brought into action! For here we were up against each other’s wits, and awful were the results of any psychological mistake. I must describe that game for the benefit of families of energetic children who like thinking and running and scoring off each other.