“You think that was a lapse of taste. What would _you_ have said to a man who cloaked the cruelty of his commercial instincts by blaming a hawk for being what Nature had made him?” There was such feeling in his voice that I hesitated long before answering. “Well,” I said, at last, “in England, anyway, we only keep such creatures in captivity for scientific purposes. I doubt if you could find a single instance nowadays of its being done just as a commercial attraction.” He stared at me. “Yes,” he said, “we do it publicly and scientifically, to enlarge the mind. But let me put to you this question. Which do you consider has the larger mind—the man who has satisfied his idle curiosity by staring at all the caged animals of the earth, or the man who has been brought up to feel that to keep such indomitable creatures as hawks and eagles, wolves and panthers, shut up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a dreadful thing?” To that singular question I knew not what to answer. At last I said: “I think you underrate the pleasure they give. We English are so awfully fond of animals!” ----- [1] For “I” read “almost anyone.”—J. G. § 2. We had entered Battersea Park by now, and since my remark about our love of beasts we had not spoken. A wood-pigeon which had been strutting before us just then flew up into a tree and began puffing out its breast. Seeking to break the silence, I said: “Pigeons are so complacent.” My friend smiled in his dubious way, and answered: “Do you know the ‘blue rock’?” “No.” “Ah! there you have a pigeon who has less complacency than any living thing. You see, it depends on circumstances. Suppose, for instance, that we happened to keep Our Selves—perhaps the most complacent class of human beings—in a large space enclosed by iron railings, feeding them up carefully, until their natural instincts caused them to run up and down at a considerable speed from side to side of the enclosure. And suppose when we noticed that they had attained the full speed and strength of their legs we took them out, holding them gingerly in order that they might not become exhausted by struggling, and placed them in little tin compartments so dark and stuffy that they would not care of their own accord to stay there, and then stood back about thirty paces with a shot gun and pressed a spring which let the tin compartment collapse. And then, as each one of Our Selves ran out, we let fly with the right barrel and peppered him in the tail, whereon, if he fell, we sent a dog out to fetch him in by the slack of his breeches, and after holding him idly for a minute by the neck we gave it a wring round; or, if he did not fall, we prayed Heaven at once and let fly with the left barrel. Do you think in these circumstances Our Selves would be complacent?” “Don’t be absurd!” I said. “Very well,” he replied, “I will come to ‘blue rocks’—do you still maintain that they are so complacent as to deserve their fate?”