"Of how so many of us choose our views," returned the Philosopher;
"we don't like to come out of the shop without something."
"But you were about to explain," continued the Philosopher, turning
to the Woman of the World, "--to prove a point."
"That I had been talking nonsense," reminded her the Minor Poet; "if
you are sure it will not weary you."
"Not at all," answered the Woman of the World; "it is quite simple.
The gifts of civilisation cannot be the meaningless rubbish you
advocates of barbarism would make out. I remember Uncle Paul's
bringing us home a young monkey he had caught in Africa. With the
aid of a few logs we fitted up a sort of stage-tree for this little
brother of mine, as I suppose you would call him, in the gun-room.
It was an admirable imitation of the thing to which he and his
ancestors must have been for thousands of years accustomed; and for
the first two nights he slept perched among its branches. On the
third the little brute turned the poor cat out of its basket and
slept on the eiderdown, after which no more tree for him, real or
imitation. At the end of the three months, if we offered him
monkey-nuts, he would snatch them from our hand and throw them at
our head.
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