Tommy Smith was very interested in this story which the rook told him, and he was just going to ask where it all happened, and whether it was near where he lived or a long way away, when the rook said, “Well, I must be flapping” (just as an old gentleman might say, “Well, I must be jogging”); “there is a meeting this afternoon which I ought to attend.”
“A meeting!” Tommy Smith said, feeling quite surprised.
“Certainly,” replied the rook. “Why not? I belong to a civilised community, so, of course, there are meetings. I should be sorry not to go to some of them.”
It seemed very funny to Tommy Smith that birds should have meetings as well as men. “But, perhaps,” he thought, “it is not quite the same kind of thing.” Only he didn’t like to say this, in case the rook should be offended, so he only asked, “What sort of a meeting is it that you are going to, Mr. Rook?”
“A very important one,” the rook answered. “It is a meeting to try someone who is accused of having done something wrong.”
“Why, then, it is a trial,” said Tommy Smith. “But do rooks have trials?”
“Of course,” said the rook. “Have I not just said that we are a civilised community? We are not wild birds. Amongst civilised people, when someone is accused of doing wrong, he is tried for it, is he not?”
“Oh yes!” said Tommy Smith. “If he is a man, he is.”
“If he is a man, men try him,” said the rook; “but if he is a rook, rooks do.”
“But what do you do if you find him guilty?” said Tommy Smith.