row old without a successor in the field to follow him up
and receive his soul--as in the case of my friend Methuselah here, who
was so neglected by my predecessors--the whole species would die out for
want of a spirit, and my own life would atone for that of my people.
There you have the central principle of the theology of Boupari. Every
race, every element, every power of nature, is summed up for them in some
particular person or thing; and on the life of that person or thing
depends, as they believe, the entire health of the species, the sequence
of events, the whole order and succession of natural phenomena."

Felix approached the mysterious and venerable bird with somewhat
incautious fingers. "It looks very old," he said, trying to stroke its
head and neck with a friendly gesture. "You do well, indeed, in calling
it Methuselah."

As he spoke, the bird, alarmed at the vague consciousness of a hand and
voice which it did not recognize and mindful of Tu-Kila-Kila's recent
attack, made a vicious peck at the fingers outstretched to caress it.
"Take care!" the Frenchman cried, in a warning voice. "The patriarch's
temper is no longer what it was sixty or seventy years ago. He grows old
and peevish. His humor is soured. He will sing no longer the lively
little scraps of Offenbach I have taught him. He does nothing but sit
still and mumble now in his own forgotten language. And he's dreadfully
cross--so crabbed--_mon Dieu_, what a character! Why, the other day, as I
told you, he bit Tu-Kila-Kila himself, the high god of the island, with a
good hard peck, when that savage tried to touch him; you'd have laughed
to see his godship sent off bleeding to his hut with a wounded finger! I
will confess I was by no means sorry at the sight myself. I do not love
that god, nor he me; and I was glad when Methuselah, on whom he is afraid
to revenge himself openly, gave him a nice smart bite for trying to
interfere with him."

"He's very snappish, to be sure," Felix said, with a smile, trying once
more to push forward one hand to stroke the bird cautiously. But
Methuselah resented all such unauthorized intrusions. He was growing too
old to put up with strangers. He made a second vicious attempt to peck at
the hand held out to soothe him, and screamed, as he did so, in the usual
discordant and unpleasant voice of an angry or frightened parrot.

"Why, Felix," Muriel put in, taking him by the arm with a girlish
gesture--for even the terr