“‘Whistles that boys make of elder-sticks with the pith scooped out,’ said the beetle.  ’The real instruments would not allow them to play with them.  The elder-whistles said they would not have joined had they been asked.  They were amateurs, and never played with professionals.  So they have private concerts with the combs and curl-papers.  But, bless you, toys of this kind are endless here!  Teetotums made of old cotton reels, tea-sets of acorn cups, dinner-sets of old shells, monkeys made of bits of sponge, all sorts of things made of breastbones and merrythoughts, old packs of cards that are always building themselves into houses and getting knocked down when the band begins to play, feathers, rabbits’ tails—­’

“‘Ah!  I have heard about the rabbits’ tails,’ I said.

“‘There they are,’ the beetle continued; ’and when the band plays you will see how they skip and run.  I don’t believe you would find out that they had no bodies, for my experience of a warren is, that when rabbits skip and run it is the tails chiefly that you do see.  But of all the amateur toys the most successful are the boats.  We have a lake for our craft, you know, and there’s quite a fleet of boats made out of old cork floats in fishing villages.  Then, you see, the old bits of cork have really been to sea, and seen a good deal of service on the herring-nets, and so they quite take the lead of the smart shop ships, that have never been beyond a pond or a tub of water.  But that’s an exception.  Amateur toys are mostly very dowdy.  Look at that box.’

“I looked, thought I must have seen it before, and wondered why a very common-looking box without a lid should affect me so strangely, and why my memory should seem struggling to bring it back out of the past.  Suddenly it came to me—­it was our old Toy Box.

“I had completely forgotten that nursery institution till recalled by the familiar aspect of the inside, which was papered with proof-sheets of some old novel on which black stars had been stamped by way of ornament.  Dim memories of how these stars, and the angles of the box, and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavours to follow the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favourable turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of the trunk.

“‘What are you staring at?’ said the beetle.

“‘It’s my old Toy Box!’ I exclaimed.

“The beetle rolled on to his back, and struggled helplessly with his legs:  I turned him over. (Neither the first nor the last time of my showing that attention to beetles.)

“‘That’s right,’ he said, ’set me on my legs.  What a turn you gave me!  You don’t mean to say you have any toys here?  If you have, the sooner you make your way home the better.’