Sleep, however, held far aloof from him.

When he had wearied his brain with other thoughts, his attention began to turn to sounds in the court below.

There, just as it grew dusk, some children were playing, and he tried to get amusement from their games.

One of them was this.

A little girl would say to the rest:--"I sent my daughter to the oil-shop, and the first thing she saw was C;" and the task was to guess for what article this initial stood.