“Here’s Rupert!” shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was suffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear.
“O-o-h them birds, they won’t let you speak—!” shrilled the labourer’s wife in disgust. “I’ll cover them up.”
And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a table-cloth over the cages of the birds.
“Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,” she said, still in a voice that was too high.
The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and bubblings still shook out.
“Oh, they won’t go on,” said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. “They’ll go to sleep now.”
“Really,” said Hermione, politely.
“They will,” said Gerald. “They will go to sleep automatically, now the impression of evening is produced.”
“Are they so easily deceived?” cried Ursula.
“Oh, yes,” replied Gerald. “Don’t you know the story of Fabre, who, when he was a boy, put a hen’s head under her wing, and she straight away went to sleep? It’s quite true.”