is
not paid an ear or a finger may be cut from the captive and despatched
to those interested, with the statement that an arm or a leg will follow
in a week unless suitable arrangements are entered into."

"Do you understand," said the Thin Woman passionately, "that it is your
own children who have been kidnapped?"

"I do not," said the Philosopher. "This course, however, is rarely
followed by the fairy people: they do not ordinarily steal for ransom,
but for love of thieving, or from some other obscure and possibly
functional causes, and the victim is retained in their forts or duns
until by the effluxion of time they forget their origin and become
peaceable citizens of the fairy state. Kidnapping is not by any means
confined to either humanity or the fairy people."

"Monster," said the Thin Woman in a deep voice, "will you listen to me?"

"I will not," said the Philosopher. "Many of the insectivora also
practice this custom. Ants, for example, are a respectable race living
in well-ordered communities. They have attained to a most complex and
artificial civilization, and will frequently adventure far afield on
colonising or other expeditions from whence they return with a rich
booty of aphides and other stock, who thenceforward become the servants
and domestic creatures of the republic. As they neither kill nor eat
their captives, this practice will be termed kidnapping. The same may
be said of bees, a hardy and industrious race living in hexagonal cells
which are very difficult to make. Sometimes, on lacking a queen of
their own, they have been observed to abduct one from a less powerful
neighbour, and use her for their own purposes without shame, mercy, or
remorse."

"Will you not understand?" screamed the Thin Woman.

"I will not," said the Philosopher. "Semi-tropical apes have been
rumoured to kidnap children, and are reported to use them very tenderly
indeed, sharing their coconuts, yams, plantains, and other equatorial
provender with the largest generosity, and conveying their delicate
captives from tree to tree (often at great distances from each other and
from the ground) with the most guarded solicitude and benevolence."

"I am going to bed," said the Thin Woman, "your stirabout is on the
hob."

"Are there lumps in it, my dear?" said the Philosopher.

"I hope there are," replied the Thin Woman, and she leaped into bed.

That night the Philosopher was afflicted with the most extraordinary
attack of