his servants and
shooting his dogs as if he were in a dream. Now he fortified himself
with two or three glasses of strong whisky and went to bed, taking his
vixen into his arms, where he slept soundly. Whether she did or not is
more than I or anybody else can say.

In the morning when he woke up they had the place to themselves, for on
his instructions the servants had all left first thing: Janet and the
cook to Oxford, where they would try and find new places, and Nanny
going back to the cottage near Tangley, where her son lived, who was the
pigman there.

So with that morning there began what was now to be their ordinary life
together. He would get up when it was broad day, and first thing light
the fire downstairs and cook the breakfast, then brush his wife, sponge
her with a damp sponge, then brush her again, in all this using scent
very freely to hide somewhat her rank odour. When she was dressed he
carried her downstairs and they had their breakfast together, she
sitting up to table with him, drinking her saucer of tea, and taking her
food from his fingers, or at any rate being fed by him. She was still
fond of the same food that she had been used to before her
transformation, a lightly boiled egg or slice of ham, a piece of
buttered toast or two, with a little quince and apple jam. While I am on
the subject of her food, I should say that reading in the encyclopedia
he found that foxes on the Continent are inordinately fond of grapes,
and that during the autumn season they abandon their ordinary diet for
them, and then grow exceedingly fat and lose their offensive odour.

This appetite for grapes is so well confirmed by Aesop, and by passages
in the Scriptures, that it is strange Mr. Tebrick should not have known
it. After reading this account he wrote to London for a basket of grapes
to be posted to him twice a week and was rejoiced to find that the
account in the encyclopedia was true in the most important of these
particulars. His vixen relished them exceedingly and seemed never to
tire of them, so that he increased his order first from one pound to
three pounds and afterwards to five. Her odour abated so much by this
means that he came not to notice it at all except sometimes in the
mornings before her toilet. What helped most to make living with her
bearable for him was that she understood him perfectly--yes, every word
he said, and though she was dumb she expressed herself very fluently by
looks and sign