POSTSCRIPT. Aunt Eliza writes to say that she can’t explain what the boys mean when they say “Obobé”, but she feels sure it must be “something not quite nice”. Thank God, there’s one thing she can’t explain. For my part, I think these words like Obobé and A-lairy and Widdy are the queerest thing of all, about these sports. And what’s queerer still are the names like Salmon Fishing and Cold Pies and Blue Boy, that make sense but have nothing whatever to do with the games.
POSTSCRIPT. Aunt Eliza writes to say that she can’t explain what the boys mean when they say “Obobé”, but she feels sure it must be “something not quite nice”. Thank God, there’s one thing she can’t explain. For my part, I think these words like Obobé and A-lairy and Widdy are the queerest thing of all, about these sports. And what’s queerer still are the names like Salmon Fishing and Cold Pies and Blue Boy, that make sense but have nothing whatever to do with the games.
She also tells me that the song ofLondon Bridge is broken downgoes back to “bloodthirsty rites of foundation-sacrifice” (read it in some book, I daresay, and so thinks it must be true), and thatFie Sally, Cry Sally“originated in early water-worship”. Early water-worship be blowed. Late beer-worship is more my style. ButAunt Eliza knows too much, anyhow; so much, that I shall have to ask her about the originating of the game ofDUCKING MUMMY, and whether it makes her think of a certain good old custom. Then she says thatHere we come gathering nuts in Mayis “a relic of Marriage by Capture”, and some more stuff of that kind. No doubt; no doubt. Aunt Eliza thinks a good deal about Marriage by Capture—to judge by her talk, at least. Nobody ever tried to captureher, you know. And nobody ever will, I don’t think.
THEARDEN PRESS
THEARDEN PRESS
W. H. SMITH & SON,STAMFORD STREET, E.C.