--Dark meat for me, always,--he answered. Then turning to me, he began
one of those monologues of his, such as that which put the Member of the
Haouse asleep the other day.
--It 's pretty much the same in men and women and in books and
everything, that it is in turkeys and chickens. Why, take your poets,
now, say Browning and Tennyson. Don't you think you can say which is the
dark-meat and which is the white-meat poet? And so of the people you
know; can't you pick out the full-flavored, coarse-fibred characters from
the delicate, fine-fibred ones? And in the same person, don't you know
the same two shades in different parts of the character that you find in
the wing and thigh of a partridge? I suppose you poets may like white
meat best, very probably; you had rather have a wing than a drumstick, I
dare say.
--Why, yes,--said I,--I suppose some of us do. Perhaps it is because a
bird flies with his white-fleshed limbs and walks with the dark-fleshed
ones. Besides, the wing-muscles are nearer the heart than the
leg-muscles.
I thought that sounded mighty pretty, and paused a moment to pat myself
on the back, as is my wont when I say something that I think of superior
quality. So I lost my innings; for the Master is apt to strike in at the
end of a bar, instead of waiting for a rest, if I may borrow a musical
phrase.
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