She was lying back on a bed of heather roots. Her eyes were closed. She might have been asleep. I said it softly, therefore, lest it should wake her. She did not open her eyes, but she answered me.
"That's a man who eats too much, isn't it?" said she.
Of course, it may be that she had read my thoughts before I uttered them. I judge her quite capable of it. It was better than thinking she did not know.
"That's why I don't like him," said I. "Sit up a minute. You can see one there in that crowd of gulls. He keeps diving down and gorging himself in the underground grill-room while all those poor wretches are shivering on the pavement."
She sat up quickly, looking at me in amazement.
"Whatever are you talking about?" said she.
"That cormorant," I replied—"in the midst of those gulls."
"But I thought a cormorant was a man who ate too much."
"So he is—he's a bird as well."
"But we call those billy-divers."