innocence. For animals are cruel but not cowardly, they are fierce but not mean, they do mischief but never malice. They make no plans, they have no hopes, they ask no questions. Because they are so happy, human beings labour to support them. Their meals are waiting, their needs supplied, men are the humble gods who tend them. As electricity is the servant of man, so is man the servant of animals. Their lack of malice makes them our conquerors. I know a secret! shrilled the little whistle: Life is its own reward.
****
As they had taken such a roundabout road they could not reach Lloyds Neck that day. They spent the afternoon peacefully dawdling on the winding ways past Dosoris, Lattingtown, Locust Valley—a region of great estates where they found few customers. Bowser, who knows all the geography of Nassau County, told them that the name Dosoris comes from Dos Uxoris, which is Latin and means the Dowry of the Wife. But evidently it was just a phrase he had been told, for when they questioned him he could not say whose wife it was or what was a dowry.
