In all placs and ages children have played with things, some found by children, some fabricated by them, and some provided by parents or other adults. Today these might include a just-emptied rolled-oats carton salvaged from the kitchen, a knocked together wooden wagon set on cast-off baby buggy wheels, or a gaudy heavy plastic gm set of Chinese manufacture.

Blockheads, friends of my heart and liver, cousins of my tripe, are you ignorant that this symposium is as authentic as any of those tales of the Greek Calends, which you swallow and digest so easily, …?

[S]he put the bow [of the double bass] away and went back to playing pizzicato, plucking the strings with chill serenity, ritual aplomb. She stood with her back straight, addressing the strings with a churchical assurance, churchical rectitude, as patient a fingerwalk as there ever was.

You'd better go to the woman's room, wash your face and come right back here and we'll be glad to have you.