The Great Train Robery by Crichton, Michael

It was a cue; his daughter picked it up neatly. “Really?” she said, fanning herself briskly. “How utterly fascinating.”

“I fear it is more so in the prospect than the telling,” Mr. Pierce replied, avoiding the glance of the young woman to such a degree that all observed his abashed reticence. He was clearly taken with her; and the final proof was that he addressed his remarks to Mrs. Trent. “It is a city like any other in the world, if truth be told, and chiefly distinguished by the lack of niceties which we residents of London take for granted.”

“I have been informed,” Miss Trent ventured, still fanning, “that there are native predators in the region.”

“I should be delighted if I regale you,” Mr. Pierce said, “with endless adventures with the Indians— for so they are called, in America as in the East— but I fear I have no adventures to report. The wilderness of America does not begin until the Mississippi is crossed.”

“Have you done so?” asked Mrs. Trent.

“I have,” Mr. Pierce replied. “It is a vast river, many times more broad than the Thames, and it marks the boundary in America between civilization and savagery. Although lately they are constructing a railway across that vast colony”— he permitted himself the condescending reference to America, and Mr. Trent guffawed “and I expect with the coming of the railway, the savagery will soon vanish.”

“How quaint,” Miss Trent said, apparently unable to think of anything else to say.

“What business took you to New York?” Mr. Trent asked

“If I may be so bold,” Mr. Pierce continued, ignoring the question, “and if the delicate ears of the ladies present shall not be offended, I shall give an example of the savagery which persists in the American lands, and the rude way of life which many persons there think nothing remarkable. Do you know of buffaloes?”

“I have read of them,” said Mrs. Trent, her eyes flashing. According to some of the testimony of the servants, she was as taken with Mr. Pierce as was her stepdaughter, and her demeanor created a minor scandal within the Trent household. Mrs. Trent said, “These buffaloes are large beasts, like wild cows, and shaggy.”

“Precisely so,” Mr. Pierce said. “The western portion of the American country is widely populated with these buffalo creatures, and many persons make their livelihood— such as it is— in hunting them.”

“Have you been to California, where there is gold?” asked Miss Trent abruptly.

“Yes,” Pierce said.

“Let the man finish his tale,” Mrs. Trent said, rather too sharply.

“Well,” Pierce said, “the buffalo hunters, as they are known, sometimes seek the flesh of the animals, which is reckoned like venison, and sometimes the hide,, which also has value.”

“They lack tusks,” Mr. Trent said. Mr. Trent had lately financed an elephant-killing expedition on behalf of the bank, and at this very moment an enormous warehouse at dockside was filled with five thousand ivory tusks. Mr. Trent had gone to inspect these goods for himself, a vast room of white curving tusks, most impressive.

“No, they have no tusks, although the male of the species possesses horns.”

“Horns, I see. But not of ivory.”

“No, not ivory.”

“I see.”

“Please go on,” Mrs. Trent said, her eyes still flashing.

“Well,” Pierce said, “the men who ki— who dispatch these buffalos are called buffalo hunters, and they utilize rifles for their purposes. On occasion they organize themselves into a line to drive the beasts over some cliff in a mass. But that is not common. Most frequently, the beast is dispatched singly. In any event— and here I must beg excuses for the crudity of what I must report of this crude countryside— once the beast has terminated existence, its innards are removed.”

“Very sensible,” Mr. Trent said.

“To be sure,” Pierce said, “but here is the peculiar part. These buffalo hunters prize as the greatest of delicacies one portion of the innards, that being the small intestines of the beast.”

“How are they prepared?” Miss Trent asked. “By roasting over a fire, I expect.”

“No, Madam,” Pierce said, “for I am telling you a tale of abject savagery. These intestines which are so prized, so much considered a delicacy, are consumed upon the spot, in a state wholly uncooked.”

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