As it proceeded it occurred to me how true it is that certain professions take hold of a man and brand him. There are grooms who look like horses, dog fanciers who resemble dogs, and if certain of these fur men had emerged from thick undergrowth nine sportsmen out of ten would have taken a pot shot at them. I fancied I could detect the little rodent-like beaver merchants, the fat, swarthy seal fans, the sharp, pale-white fox-fanciers, and a few aristocratic grey men with whom I associated chinchilla. * * * The story behind it all! That was the thing that thrilled me. Behind this roomful of strange, intent men in a London auction-room I seemed to see other men, the wild, uncouth men of youthful romance, out in the savage places of the earth and in the great loneliness of forests and ice. Hunters, trappers! Though we grow old and hard and inaccessible to all soft thoughts we will never lose our love for these. It is in our blood. We have all longed to be trappers, we have all longed to blaze the trail through the Canadian wilderness, to crack the ice on Great Whale River before we could catch our breakfast, to win home at last in a flurry of snow to the log cabin.... "Any advance on three hundred and fifty pounds?" The baying of dogs in a white-sheeted world, the pine trees in shrouds; and then--silence... "Four hundred. Any advance?" The green glitter of ice and the drama of a man fighting the elements, fighting solitude, primitive, uncouth, his mind following the minds of beasts as a fox-hunter anticipates the mind of a fox. "Five hundred! Any advance?" Blood over the snow and a limp body, the cracking of whips, the dog team with its laden sledge, and--all in order that you, my dear, may wrap your tall, elegant self in a lovely fur coat! "Going, going, gone!" Crack! Appeal to Cæsar In a high room overlooking Downing Street sit six solemn men at a table piled with books. I recognize Lord X. and Lord Y. and Lord Z. diligently reading, saying "Ha!" or "Hum!" or looking grave, or reflectively wiping the lenses of their spectacles. Two attendants in evening dress, like a couple of lost waiters, tip-toe round the apartment pulling out more books from the well-stocked walls to place before their omniverous lordships. The room is carpeted with maroon felt, a few portraits in oils gaze down on the assembly with polite indifference; and there are four fire-places set in squares of veined marble. The furnishings resemble those of ideal offices in the "efficiency first" advertisements: the inkpots are bigger and more efficient-looking than ordinary inkpots, the desks are more prairie-like in size than common desks, and the chairs more comfortable than less exalted chairs.