A Kindergarten Experiment 245 



for proceeding, I did not stop to think ; that he might 

 have ideas of liberty at variance with my summary 

 action, did not enter my head, any more than it does 

 that of hundreds of persons who are brutal through 

 thoughtlessness. 



So here was a new responsibility, and, as I began 

 to think it over, a rather serious one. What in the 

 world was I to do with the owl ? Where was I 

 to put him ? On what should I feed him ? And, 

 for that matter, what was I to do with the quiet little 

 chickens that were still slumbering in my pocket ? 

 1 began to realize the great truth which so many 

 heads of families have learned, that it is far easier to 

 assume an obligation than to discharge it. But then, 

 I was a bachelor. 



One of the rooms of the Broadway ' flat ' which 

 I occupied was an inner one, and was used for 

 storing guns, fishing-rods, and other implements of 

 carnage. An appliance closely associated with these 

 weapons was a * striking bag,' suspended from the 

 centre of the room, which I occasionally ' punched,' 

 nominally for exercise, but doubtless more for train- 



