106 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



evening, a servant takes them on her knees, crosses 

 their wings, and opens their beak with one hand 

 while with the other she stuffs their crop with boiled 

 maize. Thus gorged to excess with food, the miser- 

 able ducks pass their captivity resting on their 

 stomachs, always panting, almost breathless, half 

 stifled. Some die of surfeit. Finally the rump, dis- 

 tended with fat, spreads the tail-feathers out fan- 

 wise so that they cannot be closed again. This is 

 a sign that the fattening process has reached its 

 extreme limit. Haste is then made to behead the 

 poor creature, which otherwise would soon die of 

 suffocation. ' 9 



"And why, if you please," asked Jules, " these 

 horrible tortures if the duck fattens so easily by 

 itself!" 



' ' Alas, my friend, the satisfaction of the stomach 

 makes us cruelly ingenious. In the state of con- 

 tinual suffocation that overtakes the bird when it is 

 gorged with boiled maize, a mortal disease sets in, 

 the disease of the glutton, among men as among 

 ducks. The liver becomes tremendously enlarged 

 and changes to a soft, shapeless mass, oozing grease. 

 Well, this liver, decomposed by disease, furnishes 

 to the palate of connoisseurs an incomparable del- 

 icacy. I take their word for it, not being able to 

 speak from experience, as I have none ; for, between 

 you and me, my friend, I own that such delicacies 

 would be repugnant to your Uncle Paul. In my 

 humble opinion, it is paying too much for a greasy 

 mouthful to subject the duck to those frightful tor- 



