every night with my sisters and brother, and the set we habitually
used was "English Ecclesiastical Architecture." In lieu of Mr. Bung
the Brewer, we had "Norman Style, 1066-1145." Mrs. Bung was replaced
by "Massive Columns," Miss Bung by "Round Arches," Master Bung by
"Dog-tooth Mouldings," each one with its picture. The next Quartette
was "Early English, 1189-1307." No. 2 being "Clustered Columns," No. 3
"Pointed Arches," No. 4 "Lancet Windows," each one again with its
picture, and so on through the later styles. We had none of us the
least idea that we were being educated; we thought that we were merely
playing a game, but the information got insensibly absorbed through
ear and eye, and remained there.

Never shall I forget the astonishment of a clergyman who was showing
his church to my youngest brother and myself, he then being aged nine,
and I eleven. The Vicar observed that, had we been older, we would
have found his church very interesting architecturally, when my
nine-year-old brother remarked quite casually, "Where we are, it is
decorated 1307-1377, but by the organ it's Early English, 1189-1307."
The clergyman, no doubt, thought him a precocious little prig, but
from perpetually playing Architectural Quartettes, this little piece
of information came instinctively from him, for he had absorbed it
unconsciously.

Another set we habitually played was entitled "Famous Travellers," and
even after the lapse of fifty-six years, many of the names still stick
in my memory. For instance under "North Africa" came 2, Jules Gerard;
3, Earth; 4, Denham and Clapperton. Jules Gerard's name was familiar
to me, for was he not, like the illustrious Tartarin de Tarascon, a
_tueur de lions_? It was, indeed, Jules Gerard's example which
first fired the imagination of the immortal Tarasconnais, though