"As you are strangers in the hotel you are exempted from the tricks connected with the Intrudo, but you must expect an occasional attention of the kind you have already experienced. When I rose this morning I found that one leg of my trousers had been sewn up near the bottom, and on placing my foot inside in the effort to dress myself half a dozen Intrudo balls were crushed. Fortunately I had some clothing in a trunk of which I alone held the key, and the trunk was in a locked closet in sole charge of my butler. All clothing that was accessible had been removed; it was probably done while I was busy late the previous evening in despoiling the apartment of a friend. "Of the two boiled eggs I had for breakfast one was raw and the other hard enough to be used as a bullet; my tea was sweetened with salt; slices of boiled tongue were really pieces of soaked leather; and the cold chicken had evidently been run through a sewing machine, to judge by the number of threads in it. Pranks had been played with everything on the table; while you were laughing at the perplexities of your neighbor you found yourself the victim of a kindred deception. [Illustration: INTRUDO SPORTS THIRTY YEARS AGO.] "Ladies are the greatest lovers of the Intrudo sports, and if you have any lady acquaintances here I warn you not to make any formal calls on them to-day, if you wish to preserve your dignity unruffled. It is a proverb here that 'Intrudo lies are no sin;' and while a lady is inviting a friend to a chair, and promising not to molest him in any way, she is getting ready to crush an Intrudo ball in his neck, or upon his shoulder, or arranging for him to sit down upon a dozen of them." [Illustration: INTRUDO BALLS AND BOTTLES.] The gentleman sent a servant for some Intrudo balls and bottles, and gave the youths an opportunity to examine them. They were composed of wax thin enough to be easily broken in the hand or when striking an object a few feet away, and were filled with scented water. "They were formerly," said their informant, "made much larger than at present, and immense quantities were sold and used. At present they are small. The throwing of Intrudo balls in the streets is forbidden by the police, but occasionally the unruly urchins will embrace the opportunity to use them on each other, as you have already discovered. In many houses the balls are filled with flour instead of water, and the sport of the season resembles that of Naples and Venice. Thirty years ago every negro boy on the street was armed with a large 'squirt-gun,' which he used freely upon those of his own color; white people were at liberty to pelt any one of their complexion, and the sport became so riotous that its suppression was a public necessity." [Illustration: WOODEN CANNON.]