and on it was a three-pound
mallard duck, dripping with juice and as brown as a ripe hazel-nut. He
made a business of arranging his sleeves and drinking a glass of water
while he watched the famished Little Missioner. With a chuckle of
delight Father Roland plunged the tines of his fork hilt deep into the
breast of the duck, seized a leg in his fingers, and dismembered the
luscious anatomy of his plate with a deft twist and a sudden pull. With
his teeth buried in the leg he looked across at David. David had eaten
duck before; that is, he had eaten of the family _anas boschas_
disguised in thick gravies and highbrow sauces, but this duck that he
ate at Thoreau's table was like no other duck that he had ever tasted in
all his life. He began with misgivings at the three-pound carcass, and
he ended with an entirely new feeling of stuffed satisfaction. He
explored at will into its structure, and he found succulent morsels
which he had never dreamed of as existing in this particular bird, for
his experience had never before gone beyond a leg of duck and thinly
carved slices of breast of duck, at from eighty cents to a dollar and a
quarter an order. He would have been ashamed of himself when he had
finished had it not been that Father Roland seemed only at the
beginning, and was turning the vigour of his attack from duck to rabbit
and onion. From then on David kept him company by drinking a third cup
of coffee.

When he had finished Father Roland settled back with a sigh of content,
and drew a worn buckskin pouch from one of the voluminous pockets of his
trousers. Out of this he produced a black pipe and tobacco. At the same
time Thoreau was filling and lighting his own. In his studies and
late-hour work at home David himself had been a pipe smoker, but of late
his pipe had been distasteful to him, and it had been many weeks since
he had indulged in anything but cigars and an occasional cigarette. He
looked at the placid satisfaction in the Little Missioner's face, and
saw Thoreau's head wreathed in smoke, and he felt for the first time in
those weeks the return of his old desire. While they were eating, Mukoki
and another Indian had brought in his trunk and bags, and he went now to
one of the bags, opened it, and got his own pipe and tobacco. As he
stuffed the bowl of his English briar, and lighted the tobacco, Father
Roland's glowing face beamed at him through the fragrant fumes of his
Hudson's Bay Mixture.

Against the w