As the weather grew more chill, we seldom went out except in the morning. In the afternoon Polly and I (sometimes accompanied by Leo) played in the nursery at the top of the house.
Now and then the other girls would come up, and "play at dolls" with Polly. On these occasions the treatment I experienced was certainly hard. They were soon absorbed in dressing and undressing, sham meals, sham lessons, and all the domestic romance of doll-life, in which, according to my poor abilities, I should have been most happy to have taken a part. But, on the unwarrantable assumption that "boys could not play at dolls," the only part assigned me in the puppet comedy was to take the dolls' dirty clothes to and from an imaginary wash in a miniature wheelbarrow. I did for some time assume the character of dolls' medical man with considerable success; but having vaccinated the kid arm of one of my patients too deeply on a certain occasion with a big pin, she suffered so severely from loss of bran that I was voted a practitioner of the old school, and dismissed. I need hardly say that this harsh decision proved the ruin of my professional prospects, and I was sent back to my wheelbarrow. It was when we were tired of our ordinary amusements, during a week of wet weather, that Polly and I devised a new piece of fun to enliven the monotony of the hours when we were shut up in that town nursery at the top of the house.
Outside the nursery-windows were iron bars—a sensible precaution of Aunt Maria against accidents to "the little ones." One day when the window was slightly open, and Polly and I were hanging on the window-ledge, in attitudes that fully justified the precautionary measure of a grating, a bit of paper which was rolled up in Polly's hand escaped from her grasp, and floated down into the street. In a moment Polly and I were standing on the window-ledge, peering down—to the best of our ability—into the square and into the area depths below. Like a snow-flake in summer, we saw our paper-twist lying on the pavement; but our delight rose to ecstasy when a portly passer-by stooped and picked up the document and carefully examined it.
Out of this incident arose a systematic amusement, which, in advance of our age, we called "the parcel post."
By shoving aside the fire-guard in the absence of our nurses, we obtained some cinders, with which we repaired to our post at the window, thus illustrating that natural proclivity of children to places of danger which is the bane of parents and guardians. Here we fastened up little fragments of cinder in pieces of writing-paper, and having secured them tidily with string, we dropped these parcels through the iron bars as into a post-office. It was a breathless moment when they fell through space like shooting stars. It was a triumph if they cleared the area. But the aim and the end of our labours was to see one of our missives attract the notice of a passer-by, then excite his curiosity, and finally—if he opened it—rouse his unspeakable disgust and disappointment.
Like other tricksters, our game lasted long because of the ever-green credulity of our "public." In the ever-fresh stream of human life which daily flowed beneath our windows, there were sure to be one or more pedestrians who, with varying expressions of conscientious responsibility, unprincipled appropriation, or mere curiosity, would open our parcels, either to ascertain what trinket should be restored to its owner, or to keep what was to be got, or to see what there was to be seen.
One day when we dropped one of our parcels at the feet of a lady who was going by, she nonplussed us very effectually by ringing the bell and handing in to the footman "something which had been accidentally dropped from one of the upper windows." Fortunately for us the parcel did not reach Aunt Maria; Polly intercepted it.
As the passers-by never wearied of our parcels, I do not know when we should have got tired of our share of the fun, but for an occurrence which brought the amusement suddenly to an end. One afternoon we had made up the neatest of little white-paper parcels, worthy of having come from a jeweller's, and I clambered on to the window-seat that I might drop it successfully (and quite clear of the area) into the street. Just as I dropped it, there passed an elderly gentleman very precisely dressed, with a gold-headed cane, and a very well-brushed hat. Pop! I let the cinder parcel fall on to his beaver, from which it rebounded to his feet. The old gentleman looked quickly up, our eyes met, and I felt convinced that he saw that I had thrown it. I called Polly, and as she reached my side the old gentleman untied and examined the parcel. When he came to the cinder, he looked up once more, and Polly jumped from the window with a prolonged "Oh!"
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Oh, dear!" cried Polly; "it's the old gentleman next door!"