There was a time when I used to be a vegetarian, and earnestly ate nut rissoles and marmite sausages. In those days, if I looked at a dish of lamb cutlets, I was haunted by the spectral bleatings of woolly innocents being led to the slaughter; a mutton chop was to me a menace; and if I saw a bottle of Bovril I sighed with genuine sympathy, ‘Alas, my poor brother!’ For were not the animals our ‘younger brothers’? Were they not even as we ourselves—climbing the ladder of evolution to higher and better things? What right had we to cut off their innocent lives before their destined hour had struck?

Then by the hand of destiny I was brought in contact with the Super-Vegetarians. The Super-Vegetarians are a sect of Hindus, usually known as the Jains. It so happened that my work in India threw me into intimate contact with these interesting people. I found them not only interesting, but exceedingly kind and hospitable, and in many other ways unusually charming and refined. In fact their code of ethics with regard to the animal world was too refined for me altogether. I became aware that I was only a beginner in these matters, a despairing amateur in the presence of professionals; I was not even an ‘also ran.’ In the presence of such high and austere consistency I gave up the competition; and, realising the direction in which my ideals were leading, fell back —not without relief—on the flesh-pots of Egypt.