nother worker in the same mine which does not go to work
this way. The ant-eater found fat termites so satisfying that it left
all other things and devoted its life to the exploiting of anthills, and
now it has no rival at that business, but it is fit for nothing else.
Its awkward digging tools will not allow it to put the sole of its foot
to the ground, so it has to double them under and hobble about like a
Chinese lady. It has no teeth, and stupidity is the most prominent
feature of its character. It has become that poor thing, a man of one
idea.

But the bear is like a sign-post at a parting of the ways. If you
compare a brown bear with the black Indian, or sloth bear, as it is
sometimes called, you may detect a small but pregnant difference. When
the former walks, its claws are lifted, so that their points do not
touch the ground. Why? I have no information, but I know that it is not
content with a vegetarian diet, like its black relative, but hankers
after sheep and goats, and I guess that its murderous thoughts flow down
its nerves to those keen claws. It reminds me of a man clenching his
fist unconsciously when he thinks of the liar who has slandered him.

[Illustration: IT HAS TO DOUBLE THEM UNDER AND HOBBLE ABOUT LIKE A
CHINESE LADY.]

But what ages of concentration on the thought and practice of
assassination must have been required to perfect that most awful weapon
in Nature, the paw of a tiger, or, indeed, of any cat, for they are all
of one pattern. The sharpened flint of the savage has become the
scimitar of Saladin, keeping the keenness of its edge in a velvet sheath
and flashing out only on the field of battle. Compare that paw with the
foot of a dog, and you will, perhaps, see with me that the servility and
pliancy of the slave of man has usurped a place in his esteem which is
not its due. The cat is much the nobler animal. Dogs, with wolves,
jackals, and all of their kin, love to fall upon their victim in
overwhelming force, like a rascally mob, and bite, tear, and worry until
the life has gone out of it; the tiger, rushing single-handed, with a
fearful challenge, on the gigantic buffalo, grasps its nose with one paw
and its shoulder with the other, and has broken its massive neck in a
manner so dexterous and instantaneous that scarcely two sportsmen can
agree about how the thing is done.

I have said that the foot first appeared when the backboned creatures
came out of the waters to live upon the