‘That means the Evil Knife, I believe,’ said Lucius; ‘hardly the fittest name to inspire confidence in the minds of a man’s acquaintance. But I suppose it must do, since you withhold your real name.’ ‘I am sure you are welcome to our pasteboards,’ said Geoffrey, yawning; ‘I have a few yonder in my dressing-bag—rather a superfluous encumbrance by the way, since here one neither dresses nor shaves. But I have occasionally propitiated ravening Indians with the gift of a silver-topped scent-bottle or pomatum-pot, so the bag _has_ been useful. Dear, dear, how nice it would be to find oneself back in a world in which there are dressing-bags and dressing-bells, and dinner-bells afterwards! And yet one fancied it so slow, the world of civilisation. Lucius, is it not time for our evening pemmican? Think of the macaroons and rout-cakes we have trampled under our heels in the bear-fights that used to wind up our wine-parties; to think of the anchovy toasts and various devils we have eaten—half from sheer gluttony, half because it was good form—when we were gorged like Strasburg geese awaiting their euthanasia. Think how we have rioted, and wasted and wallowed in what are called the pleasures of the table; and behold us now, hungering for a lump of rancid fat or a tallow-candle, to supply our exhausted systems with heat-giving particles!’ CHAPTER III. HOW THEY LOST THE TRAIL. The slow days pass, but the guide does not return. Geoffrey’s sporting explorations have resulted only in a rare bird, hardly a mouthful for one of the four starving men, though they divide the appetising morsel with rigid justice, Lucius dissecting it with his clasp-knife almost as carefully as if it were a subject. ‘To think that I should live to dine on a section of wood-partridge without any bread-sauce!’ exclaimed Geoffrey dolefully. ‘Do you know, when I put the small beast in my bag I was sorely tempted to eat him, feathers and all! Indeed, I think we make a mistake in plucking our game. The feathers would at least be filling. It is the sense of a vacuum from which one suffers most severely; after all it can’t matter much what a man puts inside him, so long as he fills the cavity. Do you remember that experimental Frenchman who suggested that a hungry peasantry should eat grass? The suggestion was hardly popular, and the mob stuffed the poor wretch’s mouth with a handful of his favourite pabulum, when they hung him to a convenient lamp-post in ’93. But I really think the notion was sensible. If there were a rood of pasture uncovered by the perpetual snow I should imitate Nebuchadnezzar, and go to grass!’