“Sparrow,” said I, “to speak disrespectfully of the battue places you at once outside the pale. You are an Avian Rat. You do consume an inordinate quantity of corn. Since history began you have been an impudent parasite on man. As a hieroglyphic character you signified the enemy. Choleric old gentlemen have been roused to frenzy over your misdeeds. You have been shot at, trapped, poisoned, netted. Like the chafers, you have been excommunicated. You have been made into a yearly tribute, by the thousand. Laws have been enacted to compass your destruction, letters have been written to the Field, and yet—and yet—an inscrutable Providence has decreed that you shall survive, increase, and multiply. What good do you do?”
trapped.
“Have you ever heard me sing?” said the sparrow.
“Sing!” I cried; “that sempiternal twitter, that intolerable chirrup that destroys the best and latest hours of sleep! Do you call that singing?”
“What bird would you prefer?” he blandly inquired.
I considered for a moment. The grim possibility of ten thousand nightingales yodelling in chorus, of ten thousand skylarks, or of ten thousand cuckoos, determined my answer.
“I cannot think of one,” said I. “But this is no merit on your part, it is merely a qualification of evil.”
netted.