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The New Machiavelli by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
page 82 of 549 (14%)
youngest of several brothers, one of whom was a medical student and
let us assist at the dissection of a cat, and once or twice in
vacation time he came to Penge, and we went with parcels of
provisions to do a thorough day in the grounds and galleries of the
Crystal Palace, ending with the fireworks at close quarters. We
went in a river steamboat down to Greenwich, and fired by that made
an excursion to Margate and back; we explored London docks and
Bethnal Green Museum, Petticoat Lane and all sorts of out-of-the-way
places together.

We confessed shyly to one another a common secret vice, "Phantom
warfare." When we walked alone, especially in the country, we had
both developed the same practice of fighting an imaginary battle
about us as we walked. As we went along we were generals, and our
attacks pushed along on either side, crouching and gathering behind
hedges, cresting ridges, occupying copses, rushing open spaces,
fighting from house to house. The hillsides about Penge were
honeycombed in my imagination with the pits and trenches I had
created to check a victorious invader coming out of Surrey. For him
West Kensington was chiefly important as the scene of a desperate
and successful last stand of insurrectionary troops (who had seized
the Navy, the Bank and other advantages) against a royalist army--
reinforced by Germans--advancing for reasons best known to
themselves by way of Harrow and Ealing. It is a secret and solitary
game, as we found when we tried to play it together. We made a
success of that only once. All the way down to Margate we schemed
defences and assailed and fought them as we came back against the
sunset. Afterwards we recapitulated all that conflict by means of a
large scale map of the Thames and little paper ironclads in plan cut
out of paper.
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