and the freight on eggs is so low that most of them are
vegetarians. That's what got me started, in the first place--I saw
a great opportunity to make money; so I found a farm on a lake,
bought it, and went to raising ducks."

"Ducks!" breathlessly exclaimed Miss Demorest; but her
interruption went unnoticed.

Campbell Pope's features shone with the gentle light of a
pleasurable remembrance. "It was lovely and quiet out there, just
like Saskatchewan or the Soudan. Sometimes I fancied I must be
close to the fringe of civilization, with the life of the outer
world pulsing near at hand, for I could hear whispers of it; but I
soon got over that idea. The local inhabitants were shy but
friendly; they did me no harm. But--it was no place for ducks;
they swam all over the pond and spent so much time catching bugs
on the bottom that they had no leisure for family obligations on
land."

This gloomy recital met with an interest that prompted him to
continue, whimsically:

"There was no home life among those ducks--none whatever, but they
could swim nearly as well as Miss Kellerman. They never took
cramps, either, although they appeared to have chronic bronchitis;
and they must have learned to breathe through their tails, because
they stood on their heads for hours at a time--all I could see was
acres of white tails sticking up like patches of Cubist pond-
lilies. They swam all their fat off, and I had the pond dredged
and never found an egg."