And we're eating young partridges tonight, because we had to have something to keep us alive.

It's the necessity of the thing that counts, Peter.

Think you can understand that ?" It was pretty hard for Peter at first, but he was observant, and his mind worked quickly.

The crime of destroying birdlings in their nest, or on the ground, was impressed upon him.

He began to understand there was a certain humiliating shame attached to an attack upon a creature weaker than himself, unless there was a reason for it.