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The Toys of Peace, and other papers by Saki
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candidates will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the
contest has been conducted throughout in the pleasantest and most
straightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual esteem.
There's a jolly game for you boys to play. I never had such toys when I
was young."

"I don't think we'll play with them just now," said Eric, with an entire
absence of the enthusiasm that his uncle had shown; "I think perhaps we
ought to do a little of our holiday task. It's history this time; we've
got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in France."

"The Bourbon period," said Harvey, with some disapproval in his voice.

"We've got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth," continued Eric;
"I've learnt the names of all the principal battles already."

This would never do. "There were, of course, some battles fought during
his reign," said Harvey, "but I fancy the accounts of them were much
exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there were
practically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders could
magnify every little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the
proportions of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a
landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admired
that it was copied all over Europe."

"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't she
have her head chopped off?"

"She was another great lover of gardening," said Harvey, evasively; "in
fact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after her, and now
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