"Do nightingales sing only at night, Tom?"
"No; they sing pretty nearly all day long, only you don't notice them because other birds are singing too. They begin their night song between ten and eleven o'clock, when other birds are quiet, and that's the time to hear them if you happen to be awake. There's Charley Foster's house, that low white house on the left hand side of the road. There's Charley, too, looking out for us."
Charley was two or three years older than Tom, but having the same tastes they were often together.
Charley took them at once to his "den," as he called it, a small room at one end of the straggling house, reached by a long passage.
"Here," said Charley, "I can do what I like, and make my litters without disturbing anybody."
Not but that the room was orderly, otherwise Charley would never have been able to find his things when he wanted them.
He told Jack that he had already put up a box of birds' eggs for him, with a list and description of the eggs in it.
CHARLEY FOSTER'S COLLECTION.
Page 68.