CHAPTER XVIII. 

 THE BUFFET-GAME. 



"And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the 

 f ice, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee ? " 

 LUKE xxii. 64. 



NOTHING is more remarkable than the per- 

 sistency with which the out-door games of 

 children recur season after season. 'No sooner do the 

 days begin to lengthen than we hear in the lingering 

 light of the quiet February afternoon the merry noise of 

 the children, released from school, over their play- 

 alike on the village green and in the streets of the 

 large town. Old, familiar sports, that during the rest of 

 the year had been laid aside and forgotten, are now 

 again introduced, and carried on with fresh energy and 

 enthusiasm. And the spectator, whose grey hairs and 

 stiffened limbs and sense of dignity prevent him, even 

 though his heart is young, from joining in the merry 

 pastimes as he used in the far-off days to do, recognizes 

 in the happy scene a reproduction of his own youthful 

 experience. The games that he engaged in while a boy 



