author of 'John Barleycorn' or poor de
Quincey ought really to put drugs and drink and all that out of the
world at all. You ought to live with them in the world, and not let them
chain you. Don't you think so? And--poor Professor Kraill! Isn't he
wistful about the stuffiness of women's hair? Oh Louis, do you know what
it reminds me of?"

He lit a cigarette, watching her with amused tolerance.

"Knollys put a horrible sticky fly-paper in the stewards' pantry one
day. I was looking at it, and wishing flies needn't be made at all. Then
I wished I could let the poor things all loose, no matter how horrible
they are. There was one big bluebottle that had got stuck there on his
back with his wings in the sticky stuff. He struggled and struggled
till--Oh, horrible!--his wings came off. Then he crawled and crawled,
over other dead flies till he got to the edge of the paper. And he went
all wobbly and horrible because nearly all his legs had got pulled off."

"Lord, what a mind you've got!" he said.

"Can't you see that's how people are--most of them. Oh, poor things! If
I'd stopped to think I'd have been sorry for Ole Fred instead of putting
him in the sea for the sharks."

He looked at her amusedly again, and then at the kettle boiling on the
little spirit-stove.

"I say, old lady, theories are all very nice--after tea," he suggested.

"Oh, is it tea time?" she said, with a little sigh. Then, brightening,
she hummed a little tune all wrong as she cut bread and butter, laid a
little spray of bush roses round his plate and went down to the kitchen
to ask Mrs. King's advice about what treatment she could give to eggs to
make them nicer than usual for him.

At the door she turned back.

"You know, Louis--they've such lovely, shining wings--all beautiful
colours--"

"What?" he said. He had already dismissed the "silly little girl's"
arguments from his mind.

"I'm thinking about people and bluebottles! Lovely iridescent wings all
sploshed down in sticky stuff. And swift legs--it seems such a pity to
cripple them so that they can't fly or run."

"I _do_ so want my tea," he said, pretending to groan.

She ran down the stairs with a laugh.

That day she discovered the possibilities of the roof.

At the end of the landing on which their big top room opened was a short
iron ladder. She decided to explore and, climbing up the iron ladder,
pushed up the trapdoor. A cry of delight escaped her as she thrust her
head throu