WHEN the Christmas holidays are over, and pantomimes and parties are cleared away, there is usually a marked revival in a sport that has languished during those exciting weeks. A child who wished to play at boats, when the air was full of the smell of tangerine oranges and the glamour of the footlights, would not be tolerated in any decent schoolroom. But with the reappearance of lessons there comes a sudden demand for walnut-shells and sealing-wax, and bath-night, a thing undesirable while the house is noisy with new tunes, becomes the cause of rivalry and passionate argument. So at least it fell in the days when childhood was more than the kernel of an article. The first symptom of the new movement was an eager interest in dessert. We would entreat the Olympians to forego nut-crackers and to use our new Christmas pocket-knives for the purpose of opening their walnuts, and we would regard the results with a keen and professional eye. Were they destined to be clippers, yachts notable in history, or mere utilitarian tubs to be laden with tipsy tin-soldiers and sunk ignominiously by brass cannon? We were all naval experts and our judgments were not often wrong. But even if a walnut-shell had the right racing lines, there remained the delicate operation of stepping the mast. The “blob” of sealing-wax had to be dropped in exactly the right place, and the whittled safety-match that served for a mast must be truly perpendicular or the craft would be lopsided. The paper sail was as large as safety would permit. There followed regattas in a basin filled to the brim with water. The yachts raced from one side to the other, and some one, assumed neutral, blew with a level breath across the flood to supply the necessary wind. The reward of victory was a little coloured flag that was gummed to the sail of the successful boat. On a memorable day my _Swallow_ beat a hitherto undefeated champion in my eldest brother’s _Irene_, a result the more astonishing that Irene’s owner was himself filling the rôle of Æolus. I am glad to think it was Irene that was flung out of the window. Apart from these classic contests there were secret trials and naval reviews in private waters, and that intimate kind of navigation that took place in one’s bath. This last was spiced with an agreeable element of risk, for a rash movement would send the whole fleet to the bottom of the sea; but at the same time in no other way could an admiral have the elements so much under his control. Like Neptune, he could raise a storm at will, and when the ships had battled gallantly against terrible waves and icebergs of patent soap, a pair of pink feet would rise above the surface of the ocean, and the Fortunate Islands would greet the tired eyes of the mariners. It is a fine thing to sail about the world, but it is very good to be at home.