not be a child more easy to persuade than Joan, but this was
not the way. Her father had not the art; neither could he learn it. Joan
said:

"Father, he is hungry; I can see it."

"Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home by
his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep my
word. He has the face of a rascal anyhow, and a villain. Sit down, I tell
you!"

"I know not if he is a rascal or no, but he is hungry, father, and shall
have my porridge--I do not need it."

"If you don't obey me I'll-- Rascals are not entitled to help from honest
people, and no bite nor sup shall they have in this house. Joan!"

She set her bowl down on the box and came over and stood before her
scowling father, and said:

"Father, if you will not let me, then it must be as you say; but I would
that you would think--then you would see that it is not right to punish
one part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor
stranger's head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that is
hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is
without blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if it
was minded to it. Please let--"

"What an idea! It is the most idiotic speech I ever heard."

But Aubrey, the maire, broke in, he being fond of an argument, and having
a pretty gift in that regard, as all acknowledged. Rising in his place
and leaning his knuckles upon the table and looking about him with easy
dignity, after the manner of such as be orators, he began, smooth and
persuasive:

"I will differ with you there, gossip, and will undertake to show the
company"--here he looked around upon us and nodded his head in a
confident way--"that there is a grain of sense in what the child has
said; for look you, it is of a certainty most true and demonstrable that
it is a man's head that is master and supreme ruler over his whole body.
Is that granted? Will any deny it?" He glanced around again; everybody
indicated assent. "Very well, then; that being the case, no part of the
body is responsible for the result when it carries out an order delivered
to it by the head; ergo, the head is alone responsible for crimes done by
a man's hands or feet or stomach--do you get the idea? am I right thus
far?" Everybody said yes, and said it with enthusiasm, and some said, one
to another, that the maire was in great form to-night and at his very
best--which ple