As for my first baby meal, that was a very simple affair: the small creature was lying, rolling about, in the grass while her mother (I suppose they have mothers, such as they are) was reaping together with a host of other humans in the adjoining field. The forest was the common boundary of the two fields, and all I had to do was to creep a few yards from the wood, take the goods the gods provided, and retire to enjoy them. I did this with entire success, catching hold of the imp with one arm and hobbling along on three feet. But that baby made such a terrific caterwauling that positively I nearly dropped him out of pure anxiety for the drums of my ears. His mother rushed out from among the oat stalks and ran after me, though she did not see me, in the direction of the baby's cries, but she soon returned: I think one of her companions called to her that it was only the child, was gone and that her dinner was all right, wrapped up in a red pocket handkerchief. Well, that baby was the most delightful thing I had ever tasted, and I then and there determined that this dainty should form an item of my diet whenever obtainable. It is in season all the year round; but difficult to obtain at any time except summer. I must just add to the above narrative, that as I lay enjoying my dinner within the pine forest, scarcely fifty yards from those peasants, I could distinctly overhear their remarks as to the disappearance of the young human at that moment forming the staple item of my dinner. It appeared that I was not suspected. The whole odium of the affair was laid upon certain people who, however disreputable and disagreeable they may be (and they certainly are _both_), were at all events innocent of this "crime." I mean those impostors and cads, the wolves. Many of my most successful enterprises in and about villages have been laid to the charge of wolves: so be it! this cannot injure me. True, I should like to have the credit of certain of my exploits! those in which mankind have been destroyed, especially; but it is very amusing when you have successfully robbed an enemy, to hear some one else blamed and vengeance vowed upon persons who have had nothing whatever to do with the affair. So it was in the matter of my first baby. Not a man, woman, or child present but endeavoured to console the weeping mother by vowing vengeance upon the thieving "wolf," for she really did weep, though, as I have already declared, I did not touch her dinner but only a useless, squealing baby. That she did not really regret the loss of the tiny creature was abundantly proved by her own assertions at the time; for she several times repeated that it was, after all, "better so;" that the baby would never be hungry again (that it certainly would not!), or feel pain or worry of any sort, with more to the same effect, and all, of course, perfectly true. For all that, she cried steadily on, as she worked, and many of the other women cried also, though they all agreed