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 to this question, although, as Louis has said, it might have been just as well to have thought about it before. Speak up, Lemois, am I right or wrong? You have something on your mind; I see it in your eyes.”

“It’s more likely on his stomach,” interrupted Louis; “the pigeon may have set too heavy.”

“You are more than right, Monsieur Herbert,” Lemois answered in measured tones, ignoring the painter’s aside. He was stirring his cup as he spoke, the light of the fire making a silhouette of his body from where I sat. “For your father bear, as you call him, I have every sympathy; but I do not have to go to the North Pole to express what we owe to animals. I bring the matter to my very door, and I tell you from my heart that if I had my way there would never be anything served in my house which suffered in the killing—not even a pigeon.”

Everybody looked up in astonishment, wondering where the joke came in, but our landlord was gravity itself. “In fact,” he went on, “I believe the day will come when nothing will be killed for food—not even your dear demoiselle de Cherbourg, Monsieur Louis. Adam and