FOILED!
I stood at the barred window for some time, watching the Doctor-in-Law rushing about with his papers, and then started back as a huge and disreputable-looking black Crow settled on the stone ledge outside.
I soon recognized him as being the bird who had behaved so impertinently to me on my first arrival at Why.
“Well!” he exclaimed, squeezing himself through the iron bars, and staring at me over the tops of his spectacles. “You have got yourself into a pretty muddle now, I must say. I should think you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Indeed, I’m not,” I replied. “I’m not conscious of having done anything to be ashamed of, and as for that trial, why it was a mere farce, and perfectly absurd,” and I laughed heartily at the recollection of it.
“H’m! I’m glad you find it so amusing,” remarked the bird sententiously. “You won’t be so light-hearted about it to-morrow if they treat you as the papers say they purpose doing.”
“Why, what do they intend to do then?” I exclaimed, my curiosity thoroughly aroused.
“Execute you,” said the Crow solemnly. “And serve you jolly well right, too.”
“What nonsense!” I cried, “they can’t execute me for doing nothing.”