Yes, I certainly do!"
"But your conviction isn't exactly red-hot, I perceive. Come, wake up."
We rose. At the first street corner, as we were parting, I noticed he was
still talking of the lottery.
"Pestilential thing," he was calling it. "Men blame it lightly on the
ground that there are other forms of gambling which our laws don't reach.
I suppose a tiger in a village mustn't be killed till we have killed all
the tigers back in the woods!"
I assented absently and walked away full of a vague shame. For I know as
well as anyone that a man without a quick, strong, aggressive, insistent
indignation against undoubted evil is a very poor stick.
V
At dinner that evening, Mrs. Smith broke a long silence with the question:
"Did you go to see Manouvrier?"
"Nn--o."
She looked at me drolly. "Did you go half way and turn back?"
"Yes," said I, "that's precisely what I did." And we dropped the subject.
But in the night I felt her fingers softly touch my shoulder.
"Warm night," I remarked.
"Richard," said she, "it will be time enough to be troubled about your
taxidermist when he's given you cause."
"I'm not troubled; I'm simply interested. I'll go down to-morrow and see
him.
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