Dan smiled and said, "If Ellen wasn't good, you would make her vain. Let the partnership question rest for a little while. Go on with your work, and don't talk. I've got something very particular to do."
Dan, with his birds before him, appeared to be perplexed with some more than usually difficult problem concerning them. There was a curious indecision also in his treatment of them. Now he issued a command, now he countermanded it; now he ordered a movement, and before it was executed threw the birds into confusion by giving the signal for something entirely different. Until at length the birds, especially the old stagers, stood looking irresolutely at each other, with the possible thought in their minds (if they have any) that their master had taken a drop too much to drink; and one young recruit--none but a young one and a tomtit, who is notoriously the sauciest of birds, would have dared to do it--advanced, alone and unsupported, to the edge of the table, and looking up in Dan's face, asked what he meant by it. Recalled to himself by this act of insubordination, Dan recovered his usual self-possession, and selected two bullfinches, somewhat similar to those which he had given to the Old Sailor. They were young untrained birds, and Dan at once commenced their education. But Ellen remarked with surprise that he was less tender in his manner towards them than towards the other birds. He spoke to them more sternly, and as if the business in which they were engaged was a serious business, with not a particle of nonsense in it.
"See, Ellen," he said after some days had passed--"see how clever they are They draw up their own food and their own water; and directly I sound this whistle, they sing 'God save the King.'"
He blew through the tin whistle, and the birds sang the air through.
"Now you sound the whistle, Ellen." Ellen blew through the whistle, and the birds repeated the air.
"So you see, Ellen it doesn't matter who blows the whistle; the birds begin to sing directly they hear it. Here is another whistle--a wooden one, with a different note. Blow that softly."
Ellen blew, and the bullfinches immediately set to work hauling up water from the well.
"That is good, isn't it?" said Dan. "They will obey anybody."
"But tell me, Dan, why you don't speak to them as kindly as you do to the others?"
"Ah, you have noticed it, miss, have you? I thought you did. Well, then in the first place, I wanted to teach them by a new system. I wanted to teach them so that anybody can make them do what I do, if he gives the proper signal; and I have succeeded, as you see. If I had taught them by my voice as I have taught the others, they wouldn't have been of use to any one but me. They are such cunning little thing's, and they have such delicate little ears! In the second place, Ellen, I did not want to grow fond of them."