“Poor things!”
Katie said:
“Why, you didn't say that about the people!”
But Jean answered:
“Oh, they could speak.”
One night at the dinner-table her father was saying how difficult it must be for a man who had led a busy life to give up the habit of work.
“That is why the Rogerses kill themselves,” he said. “They would rather kill themselves in the old treadmill than stop and try to kill time. They have forgotten how to rest. They know nothing but to keep on till they drop.”
I told of something I had read not long before. It was about an aged lion that had broken loose from his cage at Coney Island. He had not offered to hurt any one; but after wandering about a little, rather aimlessly, he had come to a picket-fence, and a moment later began pacing up and down in front of it, just the length of his cage. They had come and led him back to his prison without trouble, and he had rushed eagerly into it. I noticed that Jean was listening anxiously, and when I finished she said:
“Is that a true story?”
She had forgotten altogether the point in illustration. She was concerned only with the poor old beast that had found no joy in his liberty.