However, the repast was as varied as it was delicate. The dried meat, the hard eggs, the broiled mojarras, and the roast sparrows and hilgueros, formed a repast which was long remembered.
"Ha! this time, Paganel," said the major, "you will not make me admit the utility of ferocious beasts. What are they good for?"
"Major," cried Paganel, "they are good to form classifications, orders, families, genera, sub-genera, species——"
"Very fine!" said MacNabb. "I should not have thought of that! If I had been one of Noah's companions at the time of the deluge, I should certainly have prevented that imprudent patriarch from putting into the ark pairs of tigers, lions, bears, panthers, and other animals as destructive as they were useless."
"Should you have done so?" inquired Paganel.
"I should."
"Well, you would have been wrong in a zoological point of view."
"But not in a human one."
"This is shocking," continued Paganel; "for my part, I should have preserved all the animals before the deluge of which we are so unfortunately deprived."