The Cardinal's Snuff Box

Peter happened to be engaged in the amiable pastime of tossing

bread-crumbs to his goldfinches.

But a score or so of sparrows, vulture-like, lurked under cover

of the neighbouring foliage, to dash in viciously, at the

critical moment, and snatch the food from the finches' very

mouths.

The Duchessa watched this little drama for a minute, smiling,

in silent meditation: while Peter--who, for a wonder, had his

back turned to the park of Ventirose, and, for a greater wonder

still perhaps, felt no pricking in his thumbs--remained

unconscious of her presence.

At last, sorrowfully, (but there was always a smile at the back

of her eyes), she shook her head.

"Oh, the pirates, the daredevils," she sighed.

Peter started; faced about; saluted.

"The brigands," said she, with a glance towards the sparrows'

outposts.

"Yes, poor things," said he.

"Poor things?" cried she, indignant. "The unprincipled little

monsters!"

"They can't help it," he pleaded for them. "'It is their

nature to.' They were born so. They had no choice."

"You actually defend them!" she marvelled, rebukefully.

"Oh, dear, no," he disclaimed. "I don't defend them. I defend

nothing. I merely recognise and accept. Sparrows--finches.

It's the way of the world--the established division of the

world."

She frowned incomprehension.

"The established division of the world--?"

"Exactly," said he. "Sparrows--finches the snatchers and the

snatched-from. Everything that breathes is either a sparrow or

a finch. 'T is the universal war--the struggle for existence

--the survival of the most unscrupulous. 'T is a miniature

presentment of what's going on everywhere in earth and sky."

She shook her head again.

"YOU see the earth and sky through black spectacles, I 'm

afraid," she remarked, with a long face. But there was still

an underglow of amusement in her eyes.

"No," he answered, "because there's a compensation. As you

rise in the scale of moral development, it is true, you pass

from the category of the snatchers to the category of the

snatched-from, and your ultimate extinction is assured. But,

on the other hand, you gain talents and sensibilities. You do

not live by bread alone. These goldfinches, for a case in

point, can sing--and they have your sympathy. The sparrows can

only make a horrid noise--and you contemn them. That is the

compensation. The snatchers can never know the joy of singing

--or of being pitied by ladies."

"N . . . o, perhaps not," she consented doubtfully. The

underglow of amusement in her eyes shone nearer to the surface.

"But--but they can never know, either, the despair of the

singer when his songs won't come."