exclaimed Herrick hotly, "is a degrading spectacle. It degrades
the bear and degrades me and you."

"No, it bores me," said Kelly.

"If you understood nature," retorted Herrick, "and nature's children, it
would infuriate you."

"I don't go to a music hall to get infuriated," said Kelly.

"Trained dogs I don't mind," exclaimed Herrick. "Dogs are not wild
animals. The things they're trained to do are of USE. They can guard the
house, or herd sheep. But a bear is a wild beast. Always will be a wild
beast. You can't train him to be of use. It's degrading to make him ride
a bicycle. I hate it! If I'd known there were to be performing bears
to-night, I wouldn't have come!"

"And if I'd known you were to be here to-night, I wouldn't have come!"
said Kelly. "Where do we go to next?"

They went next to a restaurant in a gayly decorated cellar. Into this
young men like themselves and beautiful ladies were so anxious to hurl
themselves that to restrain them a rope was swung across the entrance
and page boys stood on guard. When a young man became too anxious to
spend his money, the page boys pushed in his shirt front. After they
had fought their way to a table, Herrick ungraciously remarked he would
prefer to sup in a subway station. The people, he pointed out, would be
more human, the decorations were much of the same Turkish-bath school of
art, and the air was no worse.

"Cheer up, Clarence!" begged Jackson, "you'll soon be dead. To-morrow
you'll be back among your tree-toads and sunsets. And, let us hope," he
sighed, "no one will try to stop you!"

"What worries me is this," explained Herrick. "I can't help thinking
that, if one night of this artificial life is so hard upon me, what must
it be to those bears!"

Kelly exclaimed, with exasperation: "Confound the bears!" he cried. "If
you must spoil my supper weeping over animals, weep over cart-horses.
They work. Those bears are loafers. They're as well fed as pet canaries.
They're aristocrats."

"But it's not a free life!" protested Herrick. "It's not the life they
love."

"It's a darned sight better," declared Kelly, "than sleeping in a damp
wood, eating raw blackberries----"

"The more you say," retorted Herrick, "the more you show you know
nothing whatsoever of nature's children and their habits."

"And all you know of them," returned Kelly, "is that a cat has nine
lives, and a barking dog won't bite. You're a nature faker." Herrick
refused to be diverted.