ulate a masculine snore. This is a gross
calumny. You never--stop!--well, on one occasion perhaps--but then there
were extenuating circumstances. Very likely; but the child has grasped
the fact without the circumstances, and has framed his conclusion as a
universal proposition. It is a most improper induction, I admit; but
logic, like some other things, is not to be looked for in children.

Next comes mamma's turn. Perhaps she has weakly yielded on some occasion
to young hopeful's entreaties that he might come down to the kitchen
with her to order dinner. By the perverse luck that waits on poor
mortals, there happened on that very day to be a passage of arms between
mistress and cook. Rapidly forgotten by the principals, it has been
carefully stored up in the memory of the witness, who will subsequently
bestow an immense amount of misguided energy in teaching a young sister
to reproduce, with appropriate gesture and intonation, "Cook, I desire
that you will not speak to me in that way. I am extremely displeased
with you, and I shall acquaint your master with your conduct."

Small sisters, by the way, may be made to serve a variety of useful
purposes of a dramatic or semi-dramatic nature. They may safely be cast
for the unpleasant or uninteresting characters of the nursery drama.
They form convenient targets for the development of their brothers'
marksmanship; and they make excellent horses for their brothers to
drive, and, it may be added, for their brothers to flog.

When the subjects afforded by its immediate surroundings are exhausted,
Theatre Royal Nursery turns to fiction or history for materials. And
here, too, the perversity of childhood is displayed. It is not the
virtuous, the benevolent, the amiable, that your child delights to
imitate, but rather the tyrant and the destroyer, the ogre who subsists
in rude plenty on the peasantry of the neighborhood, or the dragon who
is restricted by taste or convention to one young lady _per diem_, till
the national stock is exhausted, or the inevitable knight turns up to
supply the proper dramatic finale.

The varied incident of the "Pilgrim's Progress," its romance, and the
weird fascination of its goblins and monsters, make it a favorite source
of dramatic adaptations. And here, if any man doubt the doctrine of
original sin, let him note the fierce competition among the youngsters
for the part of Apollyon, and put his doubts from him. With a little
care a great many sc