“So much for the woman who knows about ‘aigrettes,’” he went on. “Now for the woman who doesn’t. Either, when she is told these facts about, ‘aigrettes’ she sets them down as ‘hysterical stuff,’ or she is simply too ‘out of it’ to know anything. Well, she goes in and asks for an ‘aigrette.’ Do you think they sell her the real thing—I mean, of course, in England—knowing that it involves the shooting of mother-birds at breeding time? I put it to you: Would they?” His inability to grasp the real issues astonished me, and I said: “You and I happen to have read the evidence about ‘aigrettes’ and the opinion of the House of Lords’ Committee that the feathers of egrets imported into Great Britain are obtained by killing the birds during the breeding season; but you don’t suppose, do you, that people whose commercial interests are bound up with the selling of ‘aigrettes’ are going to read it, or believe it if they do read it?” “That,” he answered, “is cynical, if you like. I feel sure that, in England, people do not sell suspected articles about which there has been so much talk and inquiry as there has been about ‘aigrettes’ without examining in good faith into the facts of their origin. No, believe me, none of the ‘aigrettes’ sold in England can have grown on birds.” “This is fantastic,” I said. “Why! if what you’re saying is true, then—then real ‘aigrettes’ are all artificial; but that—that would be cheating!” “Oh, no!” he said. “You see, ‘aigrettes’ are in fashion. The word ‘real’ has therefore become parliamentary. People don’t want to be cruel, but they must have ‘real aigrettes.’ So, all these ‘aigrettes’ are ‘real,’ unless the customer has a qualm, and then they are ‘real imitation aigrettes.’ We are a highly-civilized people!” “That is very clever,” I said, “but how about the statistics of real egret plumes imported into this country?” He answered like a flash: “Oh, those, of course, are only brought here to be exported again at once to countries where they do not mind confessing to cruelty; yes, all exported, except—well, _those that aren’t_!” “Oh!” I said: “I see! You have been speaking ironically all this time.” “Have you grasped that?” he answered. “Capital!” After that we walked in silence. “The fact is,” I said, presently, “ordinary people, shopmen and customers alike, never bother their heads about such things at all.” “Yes,” he replied sadly, “they take the line of least resistance. It is just that which gives Fashion its chance to make such fools of them.” “You have yet to prove that it does make fools of them.” “I thought I had; but no matter. Take horses’ tails—what’s left of them—do you defend that fashion?” “Well,” I said, “I——” “Would you if you were a horse?” “If you mean that I am a donkey——?” “Oh, no! Not at all!” “It’s going too far,” I said, “to call docking cruel.”