Smythe did not reply to this question. He merely said, "I cut off the tiger's tail, sir, in a moment of great excitement, and having once got it, I thought I'd keep it."
"Well may you have been excited, sir, at the instant of such an outrage! And what next, sir?" asked the Doctor.
The whole of the upper part of his body began to lift in a lump, as it always did when he got worked into a rage.
"Next, sir, I decided to wear it round my waist."
"And will you be so good as to enlighten us as to the reason for this extraordinary decision?"
"The Boringos do it, sir, or else the Kinnatoos. My father told me that they——"
"Boringos, sir! Kinnatoos, sir! What are the Boringos to you, wretched youth—or the Kinnatoos, either? Because certain heathen nations, as yet far from the light, indulge in gross superstition for their own benighted ends, and credit inanimate objects with imaginary virtues and grotesque qualities which we, who are civilized, know right well that they do not possess—because these things are so, is that any reason why a Christian boy in a Christian school should seek to emulate their misguided credulity? The question before us is not why the Boringos do these things, but why you cut off my tiger's tail, sir, and wore it round your person?"
"To get fierce, sir," said Smythe.
The Doctor simply heaved in his indignation.
"To get fierce, sir!" he said, repeating Smythe's words in a tone of helpless despair.