hide-and-seek and we pop out at one another from
behind the sofa. He lacks ingenuity in this, for he always hides in
the same place. I have tempted him for variety to stow himself in the
woodbox. Or the pantry would hold him if he squeezed in among the
brooms. Nor does my ingenuity surpass his, for regularly in a certain
order I shake the curtains at the door and spy under the table. I stir
the wastebasket and peer within the vases, although they would hardly
hold his shoe. Then when he is red-hot to be found and is already
peeking impatiently around the sofa, at last I cry out his discovery
and we begin all over again.

I play ball with him and bounce it off his head, a game of more mirth
in the acting than in the telling. Or we squeeze his animals for the
noises that they make. His lion in particular roars as though lungs
were its only tenant. But chiefly I am fast in his friendship because
I ride upon his bear. I take the door at a gallop. I rear at the turn.
I fall off in my most comical fashion. Sometimes I manage to kick over
his blocks; at which we call it a game, and begin again. He has named
the bear in my honor.

We start all of our games again just as soon as we have finished them.
That is what a game is. And if it is worth playing at all, it is worth
endless repetition. If I strike a rich deep tone upon the Burmese
gong, I must continue to strike upon it until I can draw his attention
to something else. Once, the cook, hearing the din, thought that I
hinted for my dinner. Being an obliging creature, she fell into such a
flurry and so stirred her pans to push the cooking forward, that
presently she burned the meat.

Or if I moo like a cow, I must moo until sunset. I rolled off the sofa
once to distract him when the ugly world was too much with him.
Immediately he brightened from his complaint and demanded that I do it
once more. And lately, when a puppy bounced out of the house next door
and, losing its footing, rolled heels over head to the bottom of the
steps, at once he pleaded for an encore. To him all the world's a
stage.

My nephew observes me closely to see what kind of fellow I am. I study
him, too. He watches me over the top of his mug at breakfast and I
stare back at him over my coffee cup. If I wrinkle my nose, he
wrinkles his. If I stick out my tongue, he sticks his out, too. He
answers wink with wink. When I pet his woolly lamb, however, he seems
to wonder at my absurdity. When I wind up hi