But in spite of the opposition he was receiving from his most faithful adherents, Sir Marcus still sat patiently, and made his calculations for his new letter to the papers. He had already written to two or three members of Parliament for statistics, and had received replies from the House of Commons which he folded on his writing-table with the address uppermost, and in which they mostly referred him to Whitaker; and he had caused a slight disruption at the luncheon table, only that day, by wanting to know the good of the expensive education he had given his children if it turned them out ignorant of rabbits. The children were wishing just then that their father's new hobby had not happened to possess him in the Christmas holidays, and Lady Raleigh had taken the precaution of telling her cook to jug the hare and make it as unlike a rabbit as possible, so that dinner might pass off more peaceably than luncheon had done. "I must have Joan down; _she_ would sympathize," murmured Sir Marcus, laying his pen down, and reading the first sentences he had written of his letter. "Splendid woman, Joan, never laughs at my little ideas, and takes such an interest in them. Shows what intelligence can do for a girl. She'd have made Jack realize the responsibilities of existence, she would. Devil take my head, why is it swimming so this afternoon?" The letter did not get on very fast, there was too much similarity between its sentiments and those he had so often expressed before; it looked rather as though he were adapting an old letter by scratching out "duck" and substituting "rabbit," for he found himself writing that the feathers and eggs alone of one rabbit more than repaid the cost of rearing it.