138 AN IMAGINARY COLLOQUY 



position on my hind legs. Thus, my muscular sense 

 and sense of equilibrium, with perfect co-ordination 

 of all the nerves and faculties in me, were inferior to 

 hers. Finally, assuming that she was the same hind 

 I spoke about at the beginning of the book, she would 

 have reminded me of her action on that occasion; 

 how, when insulted by the offer of an acorn by a 

 creature in a scarlet mantle, she had savagely resented 

 and resolved at the same time to accept the gift and 

 punish the giver; and how she snatched the spray 

 from the outstretched hand, then, on the instant 

 of doing so, took a flying leap over the child's head, 

 and at the moment of her forefeet touching the ground 

 lashed out behind with so good an aim that she 

 grazed the face, and, given an inch more, would have 

 slashed it open with her sharp knife-like hind hoofs. 



A great quarrel, with many keen thrusts on both 

 sides, also with some laughter, and all the time the 

 feeling in me, bitter as death, that she had the best 

 of the argument ; that it would have been better that 

 animal life had continued till the time of the dying 

 of all life on the earth with no such development as 

 that of the large-brained being who walks erect and 

 smiling looks on heaven. 



But I had no magic : all I could do was to tease and 

 mystify her by whistling, and she could do no more 

 than give me a small share of her listening attention. 

 Finally, unable to make any sense out of the sounds 

 I emitted, she got up as I have told, shook herself 

 to get rid of dust and dead leaves on her coat, then 

 walked straight away without a glance at the person 



