“It will,” I said, “and that is why I do not like it. My thought is that ’twill educate them wrongly, and we shall have trouble from it. But let us discuss the matter, if that will please you.”[8]
II. “Most gladly,” he said. “But look, yonder is Megaphon’s house, and I told him I would stop. Will you go with me, and there discuss in the hearing of us both?”
“Yes,” I said, “most willingly.”
We drew near, and Chærephon beat gently upon the door with his sandal,[9] and we waited until someone should come from within.
The son of Chærephon, first asking his sire’s permission, now joined other boys who were vying one with another in a game of making noises.
Now the playing of the game was on this wise. Chærephon’s son would take from the store in his pocket a crimson paper, tightly rolled, containing an explosive. This he set off by means of a thread which projected from the end of the roll, and contained the same explosive, but not so much. The thread was called the fuse, and the roll a “cracker.” When lighted with a match, the fuse would quickly carry fire to the cracker, which, straightway bursting, made a loud report. But first Chærephon’s son would send it flying through the air, lest it harm his fingers. Yet there were lads of hardihood who boldly held the cracker as it burst, and remained unharmed; and these were the winners of the game.
This at that time was for young and old the manner of celebrating the nation’s freedom. For the people had once been in thrall to the tyrant.