Disport yourselves, little folks; gossip, plump nurses, as you scold your
soldiers. Embroider peaceably, young mothers, making from time to time a
little game of your neighbors among yourselves; and you, reflective
idlers, look at that charming picture-babies making a garden.

Playing in the sand, a game as old as the world and always amusing.
Hillocks built up in a line with little bits of wood stuck into them,
represent gardens in the walks of which baby gravely places his little
uncertain feet. What would he not give, dear little man, to be able to
complete his work by creating a pond in his park, a pond, a gutter, three
drops of water?

Further on the sand is damper, and in the mountain the little fingers
pierce a tunnel. A gigantic work which the boot of a passer-by will soon
destroy. What passer-by respects a baby's mountain? Hence the young
rascal avenges himself. See that gentleman in the brown frockcoat, who
is reading the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' on the bench; our workers have
piled up hillocks of sand and dust around him, the skirts of his coat
have already lost their color.

But let this equipage noisily dashing along go by. Four horses, two bits
of string, and a fifth horse who is the driver. That is all, and yet one
fancies one's self in a postchaise. How many places has one not visited
by nightfall?

There are drivers who prefer to be horses, there are horses who would
rather be drivers; first symptoms of ambition.

And the solitary baby who slowly draws his omnibus round the gaufre