"What do you suggest should be put over a field of corn?" I asked—"A tarpaulin?"
"It 'ud be too heavy," she replied, and then her quick eye caught the apoplectic tint in Cruikshank's cheek, and her face became full of questions.
"What is it? What is it? Couldn't you cover it up?"
"You could," said I, "but I'd sooner leave it to the rats. What are you going to do about them?" I added, to Cruikshank. "You'll have to have a wholesale slaughter."
His frown to me came too late. I had said it, and Bellwattle was up in arms at once.
"Why should you kill them?" she cried. "Oh, I think it's a shame! They have as much right to live as we have. They must eat! If you don't want them to eat corn they ought to be fed."
"Who's going to stand the expense of that?" we asked.
"The Government," she declared, "the State."
"You'd have to give them old-age pensions too," said I. "When you make human paupers they're not content with being fed. They want provision in their old age as well. It 'ud be just the same if you made rodentian paupers."
"What's that?" she asked quickly.