Page:Edgar Jepson--the four philanthropists.djvu/14

8 should like to see you bring down a pheasant coming along high with the wind!"

"A savage would do it with an arrow, and you have a weapon of precision," said Chelubai.

"Oh, would he would he?" said Bottiger, apparently choking.

"But that isn't the question," said Chelubai firmly. "Look at the life—a hog's life. What good are you to Humanity?"

An inarticulate, gusty rumbling came from Bottiger. "Look at Roger," Chelubai went on, without heeding it; and I looked at myself with patient expectancy in the slanting Venetian mirror. "He rises in the morning"

"If it will really oblige you, Chelubai, I'll try to go to bed in the morning," I said kindly.

"He eats a large and varied breakfast"

"He does not—one simple dish, it's all it runs to," I said with quiet firmness.

"Then he goes across to the Law Courts, and as often as not perverts the course of Justice by saving a hardened criminal from the just punishment of his crimes"

"Oftener—oftener than not. You have to take the sweet with the bitter at the Bar. If you don't save the guilty, you never get a chance of saving the innocent," said I.

"Then he eats a large and varied lunch"