in general and
Man in particular. (Though the words were but spoken, I could clearly
discern the capital M in their acid utterance.)

Of course I was not present officially, so to speak. Down below, in my
sub-world of chair-legs and hearthrugs and the undersides of sofas, I
was working out my own floor-problems, while they babbled on far above
my head, considering me as but a chair-leg, or even something lower in
the scale. Yet I was listening hard all the time, with that respectful
consideration one gives to all grown-up people's remarks, so long as one
knows no better.

It seemed a serious indictment enough, as they rolled it out. In
tact, considerateness, and right appreciation, as well as in taste
and aesthetic sensibilities--we failed at every point, we breeched and
bearded prentice-jobs of Nature; and I began to feel like collapsing on
the carpet from sheer spiritual anaemia. But when one of them, with
a swing of her skirt, prostrated a whole regiment of my brave tin
soldiers, and never apologized nor even offered her aid toward
revivifying the battle-line, I could not help feeling that in
tactfulness and consideration for others she was still a little to seek.
And I said as much, with some directness of language.

That was the end of me, from a society point of view. Rudeness to
visitors was the unpardonable sin, and in two seconds I had my marching
orders, and was sullenly wending my way to the St. Elelena of the
nursery. As I climbed the stair, my thoughts reverted somehow to a game
we had been playing that very morning.

It was the good old game of Rafts,--a game that will be played till all
the oceans are dry and all the trees in the world are felled--and after.
And we were all crowded together on the precarious little platform, and
Selina occupied every bit as much room as I did, and Charlotte's legs
didn't dangle over any more than Harold's. The pitiless sun overhead
beat on us all with tropic impartiality, and the hungry sharks, whose
fins scored the limitless Pacific stretching out on every side, were
impelled by an appetite that made no exceptions as to sex. When we
shared the ultimate biscuit and circulated the last water-keg, the girls
got an absolute fourth apiece, and neither more nor less; and the only
partiality shown was entirely in favour of Charlotte, who was allowed to
perceive and to hail the saviour-sail on the horizon. And this was only
because it was her turn to do so, not because she