“What on earth do you mean by that?” I replied.
He laughed offensively. “Do you know anything about sparrows?” he sneered.
I confessed I did not know much.
“I never knew any one write about them who did,” he went on. “What was I saying when you interrupted me?”
“You said you were the odd egg,” I replied. “What is an odd egg?”
“Do you know what a clutch is?” His intonation was insolence itself.
“A clutch,” said I, “is, I believe, a sitting of eggs destined to be simultaneously hatched.”
“Perhaps you may have noticed,” said he, “that in our family”—his every feather bristled with importance, and the white bars on his wings were beautifully displayed—“we do not confine ourselves to a single monotonous pattern of egg.”
“A string of variegated sparrows’ eggs was one of my earliest treasures,” said I.
“Well, then, if you know that much, and don’t know what the odd egg is, you must be a fool,” said he.