pirate. Round the corner and across the road building operations
were in progress. Planks and poles lay ready to one's hand. Nature,
in the neighbourhood, had placed conveniently a shallow pond. It was
Saturday afternoon. The nearest public-house was a mile away.
Immunity from interference by the British workman was thus assured.
It occurred to me that by placing my three depressed looking
relatives on one raft, attacking them myself from another, taking the
eldest girl's sixpence away from her, disabling their raft, and
leaving them to drift without a rudder, innocent amusement would be
provided for half an hour at least.

   They did not want to play at pirates. At first sight of the pond the
thing that called itself a boy began to cry. The six-year-old lady
said she did not like the smell of it. Not even after I had
explained the game to them were they any the more enthusiastic for
it.

   I proposed Red Indians. They could go to sleep in the unfinished
building upon a sack of lime, I would creep up through the grass, set
fire to the house, and dance round it, whooping and waving my
tomahawk, watching with fiendish delight the frantic but futile
efforts of the palefaces to escape their doom.

   It did not "catch on"—not even that. The precious thing in the lace
collar began to cry again. The creature concerning whom I could not
have told you whether it was male or female made no attempt at
argument, but started to run; it seemed to have taken a dislike to
this particular field. It stumbled over a scaffolding pole, and then
it also began to cry. What could one do to amuse such people? I
left it to them to propose something. They thought they would like
to play at "Mothers"—not in this field, but in some other field.

   The eldest girl would be mother. The other two would represent her
children. They had been taken suddenly ill.  "Waterworks," as I had
christened him, was to hold his hands to his middle and groan. His
face brightened up at the suggestion. The nondescript had the
toothache. It took up its part without a moment's hesitation, and
set to work to scream. I could be the doctor and look at their
tongues.

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