David could readily promise that, for he was a good deal afraid of Dr Budge; and he ran off at once to get Miss Grey’s consent.
This having been given, the two boys set off together the next morning, with Jack in a basket between them making hard angry pecks at the side of it the whole way.
They could see the doctor’s cottage for some distance before they reached it, and presently the doctor himself came out and stood at the gate.
“When he sees the basket,” remarked David, “he’ll think we’ve found his jackdaw, or p’r’aps he’ll think we’re bringing him a new one. Won’t he be disappointed?”
“I sha’n’t give him time to think,” said Ambrose. “I shall say, ‘I’ve brought a call-bird,’ directly I get to him.”
David thought it would have been more to the purpose to say, “We’ve brought a call-bird,” but he did not wish to begin a dispute just then, so he let the remark pass.
“Do you suppose,” he said, “that he knows what a call-bird is?”
Ambrose gave a snort of contempt.
“Why, there’s not a single thing he doesn’t know,” he answered. “He knows everything in the world.”
David’s awe increased as they got nearer to the cottage and Dr Budge, who stood with his hands in the pockets of his flannel dressing-gown watching their approach.