m your foining fence;
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will."

The term "traverse" denoted a posture of opposition, and is used by the
Host in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (ii. 3). A "bout," too, is another
fencing term, to which the King refers in "Hamlet" (iv. 7):

"When in your motion you are hot and dry--
As make your bouts more violent to that end."

_Filliping the Toad._ This is a common and cruel diversion of boys. They
lay a board, two or three feet long, at right angles over a transverse
piece two or three inches thick, then, placing the toad at one end of
the board, the other end is struck by a bat or large stick, which throws
the poor toad forty or fifty feet perpendicularly from the earth; and
the fall generally kills it. In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), Falstaff says: "If
I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle."[789]

[789] A three-man beetle is a heavy implement, with three
handles, used in driving piles, etc., which required three men
to lift it.

_Flap-dragon._[790] This pastime was much in use in days gone by. A
small combustible body was set on fire, and put afloat in a glass of
liquor. The courage of the toper was tried in the attempt to toss off
the glass in such a manner as to prevent the flap-dragon doing
mischief--raisins in hot brandy being the usual flap-dragons. Shakespeare
several times mentions this custom, as in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 1)
where Costard says: "Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon." And
in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4), he makes Falstaff say: "and drinks off
candles' ends for flap-dragons."[791]

[790] A correspondent of "Notes and Queries," 2d series, vol.
vii. p. 277, suggests as a derivation the German _schnapps_,
spirit, and _drache_, dragon, and that it is equivalent to
spirit-fire.

[791] Cf. "Winter's Tale" (iii. 3): "But to make an end of the
ship,--to see how the sea flap-dragoned it."

It appears that formerly gallants used to vie with each other in
drinking off flap-dragons to the health of their mistresses--which were
sometimes even candles' ends, swimming in brandy or other strong
spirits, whence, when on fire, they were snatched by the mouth and
swallowed;[792] an allusion to which occurs in the passage above. As
candles' ends made the most formidable flap-dragon, the greatest merit
was ascribed to the heroism of swallowing them. Ben Jonson, in "The
Masque of the Moon" (1838, p. 616, ed. Gifford), says: "But none t