In the same author's _Bartholomew Fair_ (iv. 1), when the costard-monger's basket of pears is overturned, Cokes begins to scramble for them, crying, "Ods so! a muss, a muss, a muss, a muss!" Dryden, in the prologue to _Widow Ranter_, says:-- "Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down But there's a muss of more than half the town." This is the origin of the modern colloquial or slang use of _muss_. "Handy-dandy" was a childish play in which something was shaken between the two hands, and a guess made as to the hand in which it remained. It is alluded to in _Lear_ (iv. 6. 157): "See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?" The game is very ancient, being mentioned by Aristotle, Plato, and other Greek writers. In the _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ (ii. 2. 98) Titania, lamenting the results of the quarrel with Oberon, says:-- "The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green For lack of tread are undistinguishable." The "nine men's morris" was a Warwickshire game which is still kept up among the rural population of the county. It is played on three squares, one within another, with lines uniting the angles and the middle of the sides; the opponents having each nine "men," which are moved somewhat as in draughts, or checkers. In the country the squares were often cut in the green turf, the sides of the outer one being sometimes three or four yards long. In towns, they were chalked upon the pavement. It was also played indoors upon a board. A woodcut of 1520 represents two monkeys engaged at it. It was sometimes called "nine men's merrils," from _merelles_, the old French name for the "men," or counters, with which it was played. [Illustration: "MORRIS" BOARD] The "quaint mazes" in Titania's speech, according to the best English critics, refer to a game known as "running the figure of eight." Space would fail to describe other boyish games of the time, even those mentioned in the writings of Shakespeare; and I need not say anything of leap-frog, trundling-hoop, battledore and shuttle-cock, seesaw--sometimes called "riding the wild mare"--tops, and many other pastimes in perennial favor with boys. Mulcaster, the head-master of Merchant-Taylors School in London (see page 106 above), in a book printed in 1581, enumerates as suitable exercises for boys: "indoors, dancing, wrestling, fencing, the top and scourge [whip-top]; outdoor, walking, running, leaping, swimming, riding, hunting, shooting, and playing at the ball--hand-ball, tennis, foot-ball, arm-ball." William doubtless had experience in most of these, swimming in the Avon among them. SWIMMING AND FISHING. The spirited description of Ferdinand swimming (_The Tempest_, ii. 1. 113-121) could have been written only by one well skilled in the art:--