My room where I now scarcely ever installed myself to study, and which I seldom entered except at night to sleep, became, during the beautiful month of June, my palace of delight, and I went there after dinner to enjoy the long, and mild, and beautiful twilights. I had invented a sport which I deemed an improvement upon the rag-rat trick that the dirty little street urchins¹ whisked, at the end of long strings², about the feet and legs of the passers-by. My game amused me greatly and I prosecuted³ it with vivacity⁴. It would, I think, amuse me still if I dared play it, and I hope that my trick will be imitated by all the youngsters who are imprudently allowed to read this chapter.  
On the other side of the street, just opposite my window, and similarly upon the second floor there lived the good old maid, Miss Victoire—(she wore a great old-fashioned frilled cap and round spectacles). I had obtained permission from her to fix to the fastening of her shutter⁶ a string that I then brought all across the street and into my window, the remainder of this string I rolled upon a stick, ball-fashion.
 
In the evening, as soon as the light waned⁷, a bird of my own manufacture—a sort of absurd and impossible crow, made out of iron wire and with black silk wings—came slyly from between my venetian blinds that I immediately closed after the exit of the creature, this bird descended⁸ in a droll⁹ way and posed on the paving stones in the middle of the street. A ring on which it was suspended, and which allowed it to slip freely the length of the string, was not visible because of the dim light, and from time to time I made the crow hop⁵ and skip comically about on the ground.
 
And when the pass............