"I'm glad to see you," Solomon Owl told his cousin Simon Screecher, while Dickie Deer Mouse stood stock still on the ground beneath the tree where the two cousins were sitting. "I'm glad to see you. And I hope you're enjoying good health."
"I'm well enough," Simon Screecher grunted.
"Do you find plenty to eat nowadays?" Solomon asked him.
Simon Screecher admitted that he was not starving.
"Ah!" Solomon exclaimed. "Then you can have no objection to sharing a specially nice tidbit with your own cousin."
Dickie Deer Mouse shivered. But he did not dare move, with one of Simon Screecher's great, glassy eyes staring straight at him. And there was something else that did not help to put him at his ease: Solomon Owl seemed to be watching him likewise!
"Haven't you dined to-night?" Simon Screecher inquired in a testy tone.
"Yes!" Solomon admitted. "But I haven't had my dessert yet.... What are you looking at so closely, Cousin Simon, down there on the ground?"
An angry light came into Simon Screecher's eyes.
"Can't I look where I please?" he snapped.