Perhaps I should
mention here that the three personages in this drama are birds--which
makes it all the more painful.
Like many of our British birds, the sole speaker occasionally drops
into English, or I should never have understood what was going on.
He may be a blackbird or thrush, but I doubt it, because I know all
_their_ remarks, while his are new to me. If A.A.M. heard them he
would probably tell me they were those of a "Blackman's Warbler," and
I should have believed him--once. Hardly now, after he has so airily
exposed his title as an authority; but even as it is I should not
dream of questioning his statement that "the egg of course is
rather more speckled," because I can well believe that the egg this
bird--whatever he is--came from was very badly speckled indeed.
It seems that, some time ago--I can't say when exactly, but it was
before I came down here--this unnatural son introduced to the parental
abode (which I think is either No. 5 or No. 6 in a row of young
chestnuts abutting on the high road) a rook of more than dubious
reputation, whom he persuaded his unsuspecting sire to put up for
the night. And there the rook has been ever since. As I said, I have
neither heard nor seen him, but I'm positive he's _there_. I am unable
to give the precise date on which he first led the conversation to the
good old English game of "rigging the thimble"--that also was before I
came.
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