THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST. 161 



refection having been cooked in the solitary sitting- 

 room of the establishment. 



Rain still heavy, if anything heavier than before, 

 and what shall we do ? Let us throw knives at a mark 

 like Ho Fi, the Chinese juggler, whose portrait we had 

 lately seen, represented as in the act of aiming a broad- 

 bladed knife at a fellow-countryman standing spread- 

 eagle-wise against a board, and whose outstretched 

 limbs and rigid head were encircled with similar wea- 

 pons. No sooner said than done. A target was rapidly 

 improvised, a stout board fetched from the shed, a 

 couple of ' rymers ' sharpened, and in a few minutes all 

 hands were deep in this most absorbing pursuit, which, 

 when afterwards imported into the metropolis, proved 

 of so fascinating a character that I have known the 

 whole male population of a drawing-room desert their 

 fair companions, and give themselves up an unresisting 

 prey to ' pegging.' Nothing is simpler than this game. 

 You take a sharp-pointed knife, chisel, or other imple- 

 ment, lay it flat along the hand, the point directed up 

 the arm, and the handle just projecting from the finger- 

 tips. You take a good aim at the target, fling the 

 knife so as to cause it to make one half-turn as it passes 

 through the air, and if you have performed all these 

 actions correctly, the knife darts into the target with 

 a heavy thud, and there sticks, quivering with the 

 violence of the blow. It is, in fact, a refinement 

 on ' Aunt Sally ; ' quite as exciting and not half so 

 fatiguing. 



M 



