“He was gazing very kindly at the little creature, who on her grey hind legs was anxiously begging for the tub to come down and hide her, and I said: ‘But isn’t it rather a miserable life for this poor little devil?’ “He gave me a very queer look. ‘There’s lots of people,’ he said--and his voice sounded as if I’d hurt him--‘never gits a chance to see a ’coon’--and he dropped the tub over the racoon.... “Well! Can you conceive anything more pitiful than that poor little wild creature of the open, begging and begging for a tub to fall over it and shut out all the _light and air_? Doesn’t it show what misery caged things have to go through?” “But, surely,” I said, “those other people would feel the same as you. The little white-coated man was only a servant.” He seemed to run them over in his memory. “Not one!” he answered slowly. “Not a single one! I am sure it never even occurred to them--why should it? They were there to enjoy themselves.” We walked in silence till I said: “I can’t help feeling that your little white-coated man was acting good-heartedly according to his lights.” “Quite! And after all what are the sufferings of a racoon compared with the enlargement of the human mind?” “Don’t be extravagant! You know he didn’t mean to be cruel.” “Does a man ever mean to be cruel? He merely makes or keeps his living; but to make or keep his living he will do anything that does not absolutely prick to his heart through the skin of his indolence or his obtuseness.” “I think,” I said, “that you might have expressed that less cynically, even if it’s true.” “Nothing that’s true is cynical, and nothing that is cynical is true. Indifference to the suffering of beasts always comes from over-absorption in our own comfort.” “Absorption, not over-absorption, perhaps.” “Ha! Let us see that! Very soon after seeing the racoon I was staying at the most celebrated health resort of that country, and, walking in its grounds, I came on an aviary. In the upper cages were canaries, and in the lower cage a splendid hawk. It was as large as our buzzard hawk, brown-backed and winged, light underneath, and with the finest dark-brown eyes of any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten feet each way--a noble allowance for the very soul of freedom! The bird had every luxury. There was water, and a large piece of raw meat that hadn’t been touched. Yet it was never still for a moment, flying from perch to perch, and dropping to the ground again and again so lightly, to run, literally run, up to the bars to see if perhaps--they were not there. Its face was as intelligent as any dog’s----” My friend muttered something I couldn’t catch, and then went on: “That afternoon I took the drive for which one visits that hotel, and it occurred to me to ask my chauffeur what kind of hawk it was. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I ain’t just too sure what it is they’ve got caged up now; they changes ’em so often.’ “‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that they die in captivity?’