and full of the spirit of play. To him the idea was broached more
fruitfully. We got two forces of toy soldiers, set out a lumpish
Encyclopaedic land upon the carpet, and began to play. We arranged to
move in alternate moves: first one moved all his force and then the
other; an infantry-man could move one foot at each move, a cavalry-man
two, a gun two, and it might fire six shots; and if a man was moved up
to touch another man, then we tossed up and decided which man was dead.
So we made a game, which was not a good game, but which was very amusing
once or twice. The men were packed under the lee of fat volumes, while
the guns, animated by a spirit of their own, banged away at any exposed
head, or prowled about in search of a shot. Occasionally men came into
contact, with remarkable results. Rash is the man who trusts his life
to the spin of a coin. One impossible paladin slew in succession nine
men and turned defeat to victory, to the extreme exasperation of the
strategist who had led those victims to their doom. This inordinate
factor of chance eliminated play; the individual freedom of guns turned
battles into scandals of crouching concealment; there was too much
cover afforded by the books and vast intervals of waiting while the
players took aim. And yet there was something about it. . . . It was a
game crying aloud for improvement.

Improvement came almost simultaneously in several directions. First
there was the development of the Country. The soldiers did not stand
well on an ordinary carpet, the Encyclopedia made clumsy cliff-like
"cover", and more particularly the room in which the game had its
beginnings was subject to the invasion of callers, alien souls,
trampling skirt-swishers, chatterers, creatures unfavourably impressed
by the spectacle of two middle-aged men playing with "toy soldiers" on
the floor, and very heated and excited about it. Overhead was the day
nursery, with a wide extent of smooth cork carpet (the natural terrain