"Have you, indeed?" returned the School-master, with apparent interest. "I trust you profited by it?"
"On the contrary," observed the Bibliomaniac. "My views are much unsettled by it."
"I prefer the breast of the chicken, Mrs. Smithers," observed the Idiot, sending his plate back to the presiding genius of the table. "The neck of a chicken is graceful, but not too full of sustenance."[Pg 29]
"He fights shy," whispered the Bibliomaniac, gleefully.
"Never mind," returned the School-master, confidently; "we'll land him yet." Then he added, aloud: "Unsettled by it? I fail to see how any man with beliefs that are at all the result of mature convictions can be unsettled by the story of Elsmere. For my part I believe, and I have always said—"
"I never could understand why the neck of a chicken should be allowed on a respectable table anyhow," continued the Idiot, ignoring the controversy in which his neighbors were engaged, "unless for the purpose of showing that the deceased fowl met with an accidental rather than a natural death."
"In what way does the neck demonstrate that point?" queried the Bibliomaniac, forgetting the conspiracy for a moment.
"By its twist or by its length, of course," returned the Idiot. "A chicken that dies a natural death does not have its neck wrung; nor when the head is removed by the use of a hatchet, is it likely that it will be cut off so close behind the ears that those who[Pg 30] [Pg 31]eat the chicken are confronted with four inches of neck."
"Very entertaining indeed," interposed the School-master; "but we are wandering from the point the Bibliomaniac and I were discussing. Is or is not the story of Robert Elsmere unsettling to one's beliefs? Perhaps you can help us to decide that question."
"Perhaps I can," returned the Idiot; "and perhaps not. It did not unsettle my beliefs."