then laughed and wept by turns in the excess of his joy.

All his jealousies of the night before were forgotten now. All his
desperate sorrow of the morning and the horror of his dream were gone.
What if they were foxes? Mr. Tebrick found that he could be happy with
them. As the weather was hot he lay out there all the night, first
playing hide and seek with them in the dark till, missing his vixen and
the cubs proving obstreperous, he lay down and was soon asleep.

He was woken up soon after dawn by one of the cubs tugging at his
shoelaces in play. When he sat up he saw two of the cubs standing near
him on their hind legs, wrestling with each other, the other two were
playing hide and seek round a tree trunk, and now Angelica let go his
laces and came romping into his arms to kiss him and say "Good morning"
to him, then worrying the points of his waistcoat a little shyly after
the warmth of his embrace.

That moment of awakening was very sweet to him. The freshness of the
morning, the scent of everything at the day's rebirth, the first beams
of the sun upon a tree-top near, and a pigeon rising into the air
suddenly, all delighted him. Even the rough scent of the body of the cub
in his arms seemed to him delicious.

At that moment all human customs and institutions seemed to him nothing
but folly; for said he, "I would exchange all my life as a man for my
happiness now, and even now I retain almost all of the ridiculous
conceptions of a man. The beasts are happier and I will deserve that
happiness as best I can."

After he had looked at the cubs playing merrily, how, with soft stealth,