d
prompted Hirst to make the caustic remark that the animals had been fed.
Their silence, he said, reminded him of the silence in the lion-house
when each beast holds a lump of raw meat in its paws. He went on,
stimulated by this comparison, to liken some to hippopotamuses, some
to canary birds, some to swine, some to parrots, and some to loathsome
reptiles curled round the half-decayed bodies of sheep. The intermittent
sounds--now a cough, now a horrible wheezing or throat-clearing, now a
little patter of conversation--were just, he declared, what you hear if
you stand in the lion-house when the bones are being mauled. But these
comparisons did not rouse Hewet, who, after a careless glance round
the room, fixed his eyes upon a thicket of native spears which were so
ingeniously arranged as to run their points at you whichever way you
approached them. He was clearly oblivious of his surroundings; whereupon
Hirst, perceiving that Hewet's mind was a complete blank, fixed his
attention more closely upon his fellow-creatures. He was too far from
them, however, to hear what they were saying, but it pleased him to
construct little theories about them from their gestures and appearance.

Mrs. Thornbury had received a great many letters. She was completely
engrossed in them. When she had finished a page she handed it to her
husband, or gave him the sense of what she was reading in a series of
short quotations linked together by a sound at the back of her throat.
"Evie writes that George has gone to Glasgow. 'He finds Mr. Chadbourne
so nice to work with, and we hope to spend Christmas together, but I
should not like to move Betty and Alfred any great distance (no, quite
right), though it is difficult to imagine cold weather in this heat. . . .
Eleanor and Roger drove over in the new trap. . . . Eleanor certainly
looked more like herself than I've seen her since the winter. She has
put Baby on three bottles now, which I'm sure is wise (I'm sure it is
too), and so gets better nights. . . . My hair still falls out. I find
it on the pillow! But I am cheered by hearing from Tottie Hall Green.
. . . Muriel is in Torquay enjoying herself greatly at dances. She _is_
going to show her black put after all.' . . . A line from Herbert--so
busy, poor fellow! Ah! Margaret says, 'Poor old Mrs. Fairbank died
on the eighth, quite suddenly in the conservatory, only a maid in the
house, who hadn't the presence of mind to lift her up, which they thin