“But what is a retinue?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Oh dear,” said the owl, “I have been forgetting that I am a wise owl, and that you are only a little boy who doesn’t know long words. A retinue is an entourage, you know, and”—
“But I don’t know what that word means either,” said Tommy Smith (and, indeed, he thought it was rather a more difficult one than the other).
“Oh dear,” said the owl, “I am forgetting again. Why, when there are a lot of little birds, who fly round you and twitter whenever you come out and show yourself, that is what I call having a retinue or an entourage; and, depend upon it, it is a very grand thing to have. The more birds there are to twitter about you, the grander bird you are. But it doesn’t so much matter what they twitter, and as for what they think, you had better know nothing at all about that.”
It was all very well for the owl to talk in this very wise way, but Tommy Smith felt sure that the little birds didn’t like him at all, and only flew round him to annoy him when he happened to come out in the daytime. And he didn’t think it was such a very grand thing to have a retinue like that. “They would peck at him too, I daresay, if they weren’t afraid,” he said to himself; “and no wonder, if he eats them.” But he wasn’t quite sure whether the owl did this or not, so he thought he had better ask him before feeling angry with him.
“Do you eat the little birds, Mr. Owl?” he said.
“Not very often,” the owl answered. “The fact is, I don’t so very much care about them. Only, sometimes, when I want a change of diet, or if they happen to get in my way, I like to try them. They can’t complain of that, you know.”
“Why not?” said Tommy Smith.
“They haven’t time,” said the owl. “You see, I catch them asleep, and by the time they wake up, they’ve been eaten.”
“I think it’s a great shame,” said Tommy Smith; “and I think you’re a wicked bird to do it. You ought to be shot for doing such things, and when I am grown up, and have a gun”—