All I can state with certainty is that he interested his host in
it so effectually that now the infatuated old fool is playing it all
day long.
This is evident from his son's conversation; during the pause which
invariably precedes it I should undoubtedly hear the father-bird (if
he would only speak up--which he doesn't) quavering, "I'm not sure,
my boy, I'm not _sure_, but I've a notion that, _this_ time, he's left
the pea under the _middle_ thimble--eh?"
On which the young scoundrel, knowing well that it is elsewhere,
pipes out, "There it _is_, Fa-ther, there it _is_, Fa-ther!" with
an unctuous humility shading into impatient contempt that is simply
indescribable, being indeed too revolting for words.
Then, as the father still wavers, his son makes some observations
which I cannot quite follow, but take to be on the fairness of the
game as played with a sportsbird, and the certainty that the luck must
turn sooner or later. After which he exhorts him--this time in plain
English--to "be a bird." Whereupon the doting old parent decides that
he _will_ be a bird and back the middle thimble, and the next moment I
hear the son exclaim, evidently referring to the rook, "No, '_e_'s got
it; no, '_e_'s got it. Cheer up! Cheer up!" with a perfunctory
concern that is but a poor disguise for indecent exultation.
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