these--subjects _taboo_ in gentle society--soon made it apparent that
in a Colony of such diverse colors, where every man had a sore spot
or a grievance, and even the Cinderellas had corns in their little
slippers, harmony could only be obtained by keeping to general
considerations of honor, nobility, glory, and the politics of
Beloochistan; on which points we all could agree, and where Mr.
Berkley's witty eloquence was a wonder.

[Illustration: ON WITH THE DANCE!]

It is to my uneasy period, when I was sick with private griefs and
giddy with striving to reconcile incompatibilities, that the episode
of the Chickens belongs. I was looking dissatisfied out of one of
my windows. Hohenfels, disappointed of a promenade by an afternoon
shower, was looking dissatisfied out of the other. Two or three
people, waiting for four o'clock lunch, were lounging about. I had
just remarked, I believe, that I was a melancholy man, for ever
drinking "the sweet wormwood of my sorrows." A dark phantom, like that
of Adamastor, stood up between me and the stars.

"Nonsense, you ingrate!" responded the baron from his niche, "you are
only too happy. You are now in the precise position to define my
old conception of the Lucky Dog. The Lucky Dog, you know, in my
vocabulary, is he who, free from all domestic cares, saunters up and
down his room in gown and slippers, drums on the window of a rainy
afternoon, and, as he stirs his evening fire, snaps his fingers at the
world, saying, 'I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide
for.'"

[Illustration: ENDYMION.]