"Not at all," answered the Woman of the World; "it is quite simple.
The gifts of civilisation cannot be the meaningless rubbish you
advocates of barbarism would make out. I remember Uncle Paul's
bringing us home a young monkey he had caught in Africa. With the
aid of a few logs we fitted up a sort of stage-tree for this little
brother of mine, as I suppose you would call him, in the gun-room.
It was an admirable imitation of the thing to which he and his
ancestors must have been for thousands of years accustomed; and for
the first two nights he slept perched among its branches. On the
third the little brute turned the poor cat out of its basket and
slept on the eiderdown, after which no more tree for him, real or
imitation. At the end of the three months, if we offered him
monkey-nuts, he would snatch them from our hand and throw them at
our head. He much preferred gingerbread and weak tea with plenty of
sugar; and when we wanted him to leave the kitchen fire and enjoy a
run in the garden, we had to carry him out swearing--I mean he was
swearing, of course. I quite agree with him. I much prefer this
chair on which I am sitting--this 'wooden lumber,' as you term it--
to the most comfortable lump of old red sandstone that the best
furnished cave could possibly afford; and I am degenerate enough to
fancy that I look very nice in this frock--much nicer than my
brothers or sisters to whom it originally belonged: they didn't
know how to make the best of it."

"You would look charming anyhow," I murmured with conviction, "even-
-"

"I know what you are going to say," interrupted the Woman of the
World; "please don't. It's very shocking, and, besides, I don't
agree with you. I should have had a thick, coarse skin, with hair