"Depends on who milks them," said Cruikshank. "The cow that you tampered with might have ideas. And what are we going to do when the milking season's over? Just keep it in the paddock and feed it?"
Her eyes opened wide in amazement.
"Don't they give milk all the year round?" she inquired.
Cruikshank's awkward endeavor to dispel that idea from her mind, and at the same time give no offence, was nearly the nicest thing said during lunch. "It was," he explained, "only when their condition was interesting that they obliged."
"Surely you didn't imagine," he continued, "that cows were made to give milk to human beings, irrespective of their calves?"
"Well—eggs are eggs," said Bellwattle, conclusively. And as we could not deny it she took it for granted that her supposition about the cows was correct. Logically, no doubt, she is quite right. If eggs will be eggs, it seems on the face of it an error of Nature that cows should not always be cows. The fact that they are not had no power to destroy the line of argument in her mind. She still thought that Cruikshank ought to keep one of those amiable beasts and that she ought to be able to milk it the whole year round.
And so she talked on all through that lunch-time. I could never have dreamed, from the rippling stream of her conversation, that she had ever been curious to know what was the matter with me. But then, when in a sudden silence I announced that I must be drawing my visit to a close her eyes lit up with a burning fire of questions, not one of which she asked. For the moment she was content and clever enough to let Cruikshank interrogate me. At first he refused all hearing of it.
"But you forget," said I, "I can't live on here for ever. Next Friday makes my fifth week."
"It might make your fiftieth," said he. "We don't care."
I laughed. These dear people are too hospitable to know what hospitality means. There is no such thing—or, indeed, should be no such thing—as hospitality. Hospitality is giving within reason. But if there be reason in it, why call it giving? What is mine cannot be yours within reason, for if there were reason in it, then everything I possess would be my own.