I replied rather hastily, and before I had finished speaking Marion left me and went into the house. I was alone with a calf , a cow, and a guilty conscience; alone at the[Pg 118] very time when I most needed help and encouragement. Five minutes before I had looked on my purchases with exultation, while my wife stood in the stable beside me, uttering ecstatic exclamations of delight because I had bought a cow so beautiful to behold and the dearest little calf that I must never mention in connection with veal again; now, in my black despair over this disagreement, I hated the innocent cause of it. If Marion had tried persuasion, I would have been willing to cast my theory to the winds, but I could not brook ridicule and I determined to bring up that calf by hand at whatever cost in time and trouble. I decided to begin at once by learning to milk the cow; after that, I would be in a better position to look up Marion and forgive her for the way I had behaved.

I didn't expect to become an expert milker at once, but I knew from observation how to milk, and I went to work with frantic energy. In a calmer frame of mind I might have waited to tie Ariadne's legs together  , they looked so excessively agile;[Pg 119] however, she allowed me to exhaust every possible grip and password without protest, also,—alas!—without acknowledgment. When I retreated at last with the empty pail, my dismay was increased by the sideways leaps of joyful anticipation indulged in by the calf in the next stall. Something had to be done to fill up that creature, and I realized with a sense of utter desolation that I was left alone to do it. A word of advice, a protest, tears or angry reprisals, would alike have been sweet to my ears at that moment, but I knew Marion too well to hope that she would come to my help until I implored her forgiveness; even then,—oh, maddening inconsistency!—she would perhaps be plunged in gloom because I had not enough strength of character to stick to my convictions. No, there was but one course for me: I must prove the worth of my theory, if possible; if not, I would at least be in a position to capitulate with the honors of war.

I went into the house and looked up the directions for teaching a calf to drink. I[Pg 120] found that you merely seized it by the nostrils with the thumb and little finger, inserting the other three into its mouth as you drew its head gently into the pail of milk. This operation sounded rather objectionable, but I could not afford to be squeamish, and I prepared to smuggle our small supply of milk out of the pantry and add it up with water to make a sufficient bulk. As I passed through the kitchen I glanced furtively at Marion in the faint hope that she might be ready to hold out the olive branch, but when I saw that she did not deign to notice my existence a sudden violent resentment seized me. Instead of surreptitiously abstracting the milk, as I had intended, I poured it into the pail with defiant ostentation; still, I left the kitchen with a sinking heart, for when Marion neglected to ask me what I was going to do with that, I knew that she must indeed be in a serious mood.
 to the letter up to the point when I drew the calf's head into the pail and inserted my fingers, though much perseverance was needed, for[Pg 121] it seemed to be able to travel backwards in all directions at once, faster than I could go forwards; but after that I am not quite sure what happened. I know there was a violent explosion and upheaval,—a blank followed, then I discovered that I was standing in the stable doorway frantically squeezing three of my fingers between my knees to deaden the pain, while the calf stood outside looking at me with an expression of incredulous wonder, its legs sticking out in four different directions like props. I wonder whether it was blown out or carried out; I don't think it walked. I don't think, either, that I lost my presence of mind; if I did, I found it again instantly. Instead of going into the house for liniment, I calmly turned the cow out of the stable also, then I looked on grimly, resigned to non-interference if the calf should happen to bite its parent or the cow kick her offspring.

Ariadne looked around apprehensively when she emerged from the stable; the calf ambled crookedly toward her; she edged away with forward pointed ears; it [Pg 122]followed hungrily. She trotted toward the open gate, the calf gamboling in pursuit; suddenly her tail straightened and she broke into a mad gallop,—so did the calf Events in Hong Kong, so also did I. It was in this order we passed the kitchen door where Marion stood calling out to me in wild alarm to run, that the cow had broken loose.

Perhaps it was this cheery information that inspired me to overtake my movable property a mile further down the road, where our butcher, homeward bound, had got off his wagon to turn them back.

"You might be able to milk a cow that had milk," he said with a chuckle, after listening to my tale, "but it'd take Old Nick to raise a calf on a dry one."

"A dry one!" I shouted. "Do you mean"——

"Did the old man tell you it was this cow's calf?" he interrupted.