“Ho-ho-ho!” laughed the jackass hoarsely.
“Who spoke?” repeated the child, with an hysterical sob; “please say that again—mince-pie, wasn’t it?”
“And jam tart,” added the voice again, but sounding much nearer than before.
Poor Berty clapped his tiny hands in delight. “Ah! It’s some one come at last,” he cried.
“Yes, Berty Wake, it’s me!” gurgled the bird in a deep, guttural tone, at the same time dropping down on a broad limb of the tree just over the [[315]]boy’s head. “Here am I, Jack the Rover—otherwise, Laughing Jack, as my pa calls me.”
For fully a minute the boy stood gaping at the strange bird, too much astonished to utter a word.
“Was it—was it really you who talked just now?” he said, with a quaver of fear in his voice.
“ ‘YOU CAN’T BE OUR JACK?’ ”
“Why, of course it was,” said the jackass, whetting his beak in a reflective way and shaking his huge head to and fro.