"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."

"Or when the ladies are pitiless. That is true," consented