It was the practice of Etonians, in Shelley's earlier time, to assemble on dark winter evenings under the cloisters, and amuse themselves in this droll fashion. The name of a particular boy (one known probably to be in the rear of the multitude coming from the playing-grounds) was shouted aloud, as though he were needed for some urgent business. The cry having been thus raised, it grew louder and louder from the increasing energy and growing number of the voices. On the appearance of the boy owning the name, the clamour was redoubled. Everyone drew to one side or the other to make a way for him. It was useless for him to proclaim his presence and beg the shouters to spare their lungs. No words of his utterance could be heard in the uproar. Could they have been heard, any words from him would only stimulate the shouters to shout yet louder. There was no course open to him but to walk straight on through two lines of excited faces to the point, where the demand for his presence had originated. On coming to that point he found (if he did not know it before) that nobody wanted him, and was received with peals of laughter. In its origin the game was doubtless a lively, piquant, and comparatively inoffensive practical joke at the expense of a lad, who, imagining himself called for some serious cause, hastened at full speed to discover he had been summoned for nothing. But it is in the nature of practical jokes to degenerate into cruel jokes, however amiable they may have been in the first instance. As soon as this particular joke had lost its newness, the boy thus shouted for knew that he was being made a fool of, felt himself insulted, grew angry; his anger being further stimulated by some new variation of the game of torture.