standing naked against the sky, no one was
there, and Coll Dhu and Evleen Blake lay
shattered far below.

                                III.
    TO BE TAKEN AT THE DINNER-TABLE.

Does any one know who gives the names to
our streets? Does any one know who invents
the mottoes which are inserted in the cracker-papers,
along with the sugar-plums?—I don't
envy him his intellectual faculties, by-the-by, and
I suspect him to be the individual who translates
the books of the foreign operas. Does any
one know who introduces the new dishes,
Kromeski's, and such-like? Does any one know
who is responsible for new words, such as shunt
and thud, shimmer, ping (denoting the crack of
the rifle), and many others? Does any one
know who has obliged us to talk for ever about
"fraternising" and "cropping up"? Does any
one know the Sage to whom perfumers apply
when they have invented a shaving-soap, or hair-wash,
and who furnishes the trade with such
names for their wares as Rypophagon, Euxesis,
Depilatory, Bostrakeison? Does any one know
who makes the riddles?

To the last question—only—I answer, Yes;
I know.

In a certain year, which, I don't mind
mentioning may be looked upon as included in
the present century, I was a little boy—a sharp
little boy, though I say it, and a skinny little
boy. The two qualities not unfrequently go
together. I will not mention what my age was at
the time, but I was at school not far from
London, and I was of an age when it is
customary, or was customary, to wear a jacket and
frill.

In riddles, I had at that early age a profound
and solemn joy. To the study of those problems,
I was beyond measure addicted, and in the
collecting of them I was diligent in the extreme.
It was the custom at the time for certain periodicals
to give the question of a conundrum in one
number, and the answer in the next. There
was an interval of seven days and nights
between the propounding of the question, and
the furnishing of the reply. What a time was
that for me! I sought the solution of the
enigma, off and on (generally on), during the
leisure hours of the week (no wonder I was
skinny!), and sometimes, I am proud to remember,
I became acquainted with the answer before
the number containing it reached me from the
official source. There was another kind of
puzzle which used to appear when my sharp
and skinny boyhood was at its sharpest and
skinniest, by which I was much more perplexed
than by conundrums or riddles conveyed in
mere words. I speak of what may be called
symbolical riddles—rebus is, I believe, their
true designation—little squalid woodcuts
representing all sorts of impossible objects huddled
together in incongruous disorder; letters of the
alphabet, at times, and even occasionally fragments
of words, being introduced here and there,
to add to the general confusion. Thus you would
have: a Cupid mending a pen, a gridiron, the
letter x, a bar of music, p. u. g. and a fife—
you would have these presented to you on a
certain Saturday, with the announcement that
on the following Saturday there would be
issued an explanation of the mysterious and terrific
jumble. That explanation would come, but with
it new difficulties worse than the former. A
birdcage, a setting sun (not like), the word
"snip," a cradle, and some quadruped to which
it would have puzzled Buffon himself to give a
name. With these problems I was not successful,
never having solved but one in my life, as
will presently appear. Neither was I good at
poetical riddles, in parts—slightly forced—as
"My first is a boa-constrictor, My second's a
Roman lictor, My third is a Dean and Chipter,
And my whole goes always on tip-ter." These
were too much for me.

I remember on one occasion accidentally
meeting with a publication in which there was
a rebus better executed than those to which I
had been accustomed, and which mystified me
greatly. First of all there was the letter A;
then came a figure of a clearly virtuous man
in a long gown, with a scrip, and a staff, and
a cockle-shell on his hat; then followed a
representation of an extremely old person with
flowing white hair and beard; the figure 2
was the next symbol, and beyond this was a
gentleman on crutches, looking at a five-barred
gate. Oh, how that rebus haunted me! It was
at a sea-side library that I met with it during
the holidays, and before the next number came
out I was back at school. The publication in
which this remarkable picture had appeared was
an expensive one, and quite beyond my means,
so there was no way of getting at the explanation.
Determined to conquer, and fearing that
one of the symbols might escape my memory,
I wrote them down in order. In doing so, an
interpretation flashed upon me. A—Pilgrim
—Age—To—Cripple—Gate. Ah! was it the
right one? Had I triumphed, or had I failed?
My anxiety on the subject attained such a
pitch at last, that I determined to write to the
editor of the periodical in which the rebus had
appeared, and implore him to take compassion
upon me and relieve my mind. To that
communication I received no answer. Perhaps there
was one in the notices to correspondents—but
then I must have purchased the periodical to
get it.

I mention these particulars because they had
something—not a little—to do with a certain
small incident which, small though it was, had
influence on my after life. The incident in
question was the composition of a riddle by the
present writer. It was composed with difficulty,
on a slate; portions of it were frequently rubbed
out, the wording of it gave me a world of
trouble, but the work was achieved at last.
"Why," it was thus that I worded it in its