1 8 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



exciting. From box to box it scurries, with me at its heels 

 raining blows on the floor and choking myself with dust. 

 Then it is up the bed-post, down again, up the book-case 

 and behind Webster, where it regains its wind before I can 

 dislodge it, from shelf to shelf like a monkey, across to the 

 almirah with one bound, and then nowhere ! I mount a 

 chair and reconnoitre the top, lay my face to the ground 

 and explore the bottom, peer behind, but it simply is not. 

 While it was sitting behind Webster it thought on a tunnel 

 which it had excavated last year through the back of the 

 almirah. After much pondering I decide to open the al- 

 mirah, and sure enough it bounces out of a nest of neckties, 

 and, lighting on my foot, clambers like a lamplighter up 

 my pantaloons, happily on the outside. An agonized spring 

 which an adult kangaroo would be proud of, flings it to the 

 middle of the floor, and ere it can recover itself and reach 

 any shelter, I swoop like a falcon on my prey, and a dex- 

 terous flick with the point of the cane rolls it over. The 

 great malefactor's course is run, and the convulsive wagging 

 of its tough ropy tail makes a rap, rap, rap on the ground. 



This is royal sport and satisfies many cravings of a nature 

 snubbed and kept down by civilization. No doubt civiliza- 

 tion is a good thing for man as a moral and intellectual 



