bring yourselves! Why do you allow me in certain bounds to give you sport, and trap me outside those bounds like vermin? When I was beautiful--and I _was_ beautiful--it was you who begged of me! I gave until my looks were gone. Now that my looks are gone, I have to beg you to come to me, or I must starve; and when I beg, you bring me here. That’s funny isn’t it, d----d funny! I’d laugh, if laughter earned my living; but I can’t afford to laugh, my fellow-sportsmen--the more there are of you the better for me until I’m done for!” Silently we men would watch--as one may watch rats let out of a cage to be pounced upon by a terrier--their frightened, restless eyes cowed by coming death; their short, frantic rush, soon ended; their tossed, limp bodies! On some of our faces was a jeering curiosity, as though we were saying: “Ah! we thought that you would come to this.” A few faces--not used to such a show--were darkened with a kind of pity. The most were fixed and hard and dull, as of men looking at hurtful things they own and cannot do without. But in all our unmoving eyes could be seen that tightening of fibre, that tenseness, which is the mark of sport. The beaters had well done their work; the game was driven to the gun! It was but the finish of the hunt, the hunt that we had started, one or other of us, some fine day, the sun shining and the blood hot, wishing no harm to any one, but just a little sport. MONEY VIII MONEY Every night between the hours of two and four he would wake, and lie sleepless, and all his monetary ghosts would come and visit him. If, for instance, he had just bought a house and paid for it, any doubt he had conceived at any time about its antecedents or its future would suddenly appear, squatting on the foot-rail of his bed, staring in his face. There it would grow, until it seemed to fill the room; and terror would grip his heart. The words: “I shall lose my money,” would leap to his lips; but in the dark it seemed ridiculous to speak them. Presently beside that doubt more doubts would squat. Doubts about his other houses, about his shares; misgivings as to Water Boards; terrors over Yankee Rails. They took, fantastically, the shape of owls, clinging in a line and swaying, while from their wide black gaps of mouth would come the silent chorus: “Money, money, you’ll lose all your money!” His heart would start thumping and fluttering; he would turn his old white head, bury his whisker in the pillow, shut his eyes, and con over such investments as he really could not lose. Then, beside his head half-hidden in the pillow, there would come and perch the spectral bird of some unlikely liability, such as a lawsuit that might drive him into bankruptcy; while, on the other side, touching his silver hair, would squat the yellow fowl of Socialism. Between these two he would lie unmoving, save for that hammering of his heart, till at last would come a drowsiness, and he would fall asleep....