But KIPPER made no response to these advances. He showed that he meant to be unsociable, and, little by little, the notabilities and landed gentry ceased to take any notice of him. Occasionally some of the sportsmen of The Court, when out hunting the slow-worms and the bumble-bees, would come across KIPPER, mounted on a huge and vicious looking stagbeetle, which he managed with considerable address, but he never deigned to respond to their salutations, but passed on his way with a malevolent grin. Even the forest pigs and ponies took a dread of him at last, and would scamper away through the bracken directly they saw him approach. As to the deer, the pheasants, the rabbits, and the hares, they would just as soon have faced a poacher. It will be seen, therefore, that KIPPER was not the sort of person to whom an elf or a fairy would appeal in case of distress. If he had a heart at all, it was like that of an artichoke, all choke--and very little arti. As far as human beings went, KIPPER had a lofty disdain for them and their ways. He smiled contemptuously when the stagbeetle told him how the elves had stolen this cottager's milk, or robbed that verderer's garden of its gooseberries. And his sarcasm was equally pronounced when he heard how a fairy orchestra had serenaded the parson's pretty daughter on Midsummer Eve, or that some good-natured fays had collected the swarming bees of a hard-working farmer, and driven them home against the wishes of their queen. KIPPER looked upon men, women, and children as wretched beings, who worried themselves without any necessity--poor creatures, whose only object in life appeared to be to endeavour to make one another miserable, and discontented with their very existence. Therefore he regarded them no more than he would newts and lizards. Indeed, he often told the stagbeetle that he had far more respect for a newt, because he could develop an orange waistcoat, whereas a man could not keep his chest warm without robbing another animal of its skin or wool. As to the lizards, they only came out when they could bask in the sun; whereas a man had to pick up and kindle sticks to keep his ugly body warm, and cook his poisonous food.