"Why not? It will be a capital place if we take care not to kick the ball into the fountain."
"I don't like playing here, with all the men looking on. It seems so silly to be running after a ball and kicking it, as if you were cross with it for being on the ground."
"I never thought of that," said Harry. "But let's see: why do we kick it? I wish we'd been the same as other boys."
"Well, so we are, only you were born in India, and I was born here."
"I don't mean that," cried Harry. "I mean the same as other English boys are. They go to big schools where they learn all sorts of games when they're half as big as we are. But let's see; we want to know why everything is. Why do we kick the football?"
"To make it bounce, of course."
"That isn't all. We kick it to make it fly through the air."
"For exercise," said Phra.
"That's something to do with it, I suppose; but there's something else. It's to try who's best man. Don't you see?"
"No," said Phra; "I only know that we've got to learn to play football and cricket."