When an American goes to sea, he reads books, or he calculates the number of tons of coal it is taking to run the vessel at that rate of speed, and he determines that rate of speed by counting the rise and fall of the piston-rod, with his watch in his hand; and when this ceases to amuse him he plays cards in the smoking-room or holds pools on the run and on the pilot's number. The Englishman joins in these latter amusements, because nothing better offers. But when his foot is on his native heath or on the deck of one of his own vessels, he demonstrates his preference for that sort of entertainment which requires exercise and little thought. If it is at a country-house, he plays games which entail considerable running about, and at picnics he enjoys "Throw the handkerchief," and on board ship he plays cricket and other games dear to the heart of the American at the age of five. This is partly because he always exercises and likes moving about, as Americans do not, and because the reading of books (except such books as _Mr. Potter of Texas_, which, I firmly believe, every Englishman I ever met has read, and upon which they have bestowed the most unqualified approval as the truest picture of American life and character they have ever found) entertains him for but a very short period at a time. So a netting is placed about the upper deck for him, and he plays cricket; not only he, but his wife and his sister and his mother and the unattached young ladies under the captain's care, who are going out to India, presumably to be met at the wharf by prospective husbands. There is something most charming in the absolute equality which this sport entails, and the seriousness with which the English regard it. We could not in America expect a white-haired lady with spectacles to bowl overhand, or to see that it is considered quite as a matter of course that she should do it by the member of the last Oxford eleven, nor would our young women be able to hold a hot ball, or to take it with the hands crossed and only partly open, and not palm to palm and wide apart. An American, as a rule, walks in order that he may reach a certain point, but the Englishman walks for the sake of the walking. And he plays games, also, apparently for the exercise there is in them; games in which people sit in a circle and discuss whether love or reason should guide them in going into matrimony do not appeal to him so strongly as do "Oranges and lemons," or "Where are you, Jacob?" which is a very fine game, in which an early training in sliding to bases gives you a certain advantage. It is certainly instructive to hear a captain who got his company through storming Fort Nilt last year in the Pamir inquire, anxiously, "Oranges or lemons? Yes, I know. But _which_ should I say, old chap? I'm a little rusty in the game, you know." If people can get back to the days when they were children by playing games, or in any other way, no one can blame them.