The bullfinch was duly placed in the museum, where it really looked very well. Not long after, however, we began to notice a most peculiar odour in the school-room.
"It's the flowers!" said Cathy, sniffing at a vase, and throwing the water out of the window. "They always get nasty if you leave them too long."
"It smells to me more like a dead mouse," I declared. "Perhaps one may have had a funeral inside the wall;" and, dropping on my knees, I crept round the room, scenting the skirting-boards like a pointer. In spite of my efforts I was not able to fix the spot, and as Cathy turned out a potful of sour paste which we had forgotten in the cupboard, and found a pile of stale mushrooms in the pocket of George's coat, which was hanging behind the door, we came to the conclusion that it might be either of these.
But the odour did not improve, and by the next day it had become almost unbearable. Even the boys perceived it, and that is saying something. We all went round the room, sniffing in every corner, and trying to find the cause of offence, till at length Edward flung open the door of the cabinet.
"It's your beastly bullfinch!" he declared. "Take the wretched thing away! It's only half-cured, and smells like a tan-yard! Whew!"
Poor Dick was rather crest-fallen, especially as Edward made it a subject of chaff for many days; and he grew so huffy about it, that for some time we did not dare to mention either birds or the collection in his presence. He came home one day, however, bubbling over with laughter.
"I've a ripping museum joke for you!" he said. "Beats your old bullfinch into fits!"
"What's that?" we enquired.
"Why, I was down the village with the governor this morning, and we dropped into old Mrs. Grainger's. I was telling her a yarn or two about the Babe's crocodile's egg, and so on, and she turned round to a drawer, and fished out a piece of pink coral. 'If you like things from furrin' parts,' says she, 'I'll give you this. My sailor son brought it home from Singapore on his last voyage. I've heard as coral is all full of insects, but I've boiled this piece well in a saucepan, so I reckon it'll be clean enough now!'"
"Boiled!" we exclaimed.