whack. If in spinning in the center ring the plugger jostles out a top
or tops, it counts as a hit, and the player is entitled to another
"try." If the plugger spins and dies in the ring without knocking out
a top, it is a miss, and the player must add another top.

Sometimes a crack player throws with such force and accuracy as to
split a bait top. This is the acme of the game and the crowning glory
of the player. Often the bait consists of toothless, battered wrecks,
but this does not lessen the fun of the game.




CHAPTER III

KITES: WHERE FOUND; HOW MADE; THEIR PRACTICAL USES; CLOSELY RELATED TO
AEROPLANES--A GREAT SPORT


Spring winds favor kite flying. This is another world-wide sport, and
it was popular with old and young in China--the land of the kite--at
the time when the Egyptians were cutting stones for the pyramids.
Everybody knows, or should know, what the great Ben. Franklin did by
means of a kite, though the kite through which he learned the nature
of lightning was of a model that is not often seen at this time. This
was the old bow kite, the kind that every beginner learns to make, and
which needs no detailed description here.

The hexagonal or coffin-shaped kite is more reliable than the old
sort, and is quite as cheap and as easily made. Kites of both these