Certainly I began to pin out a few butterflies on cork, but I never ended them, nor became an adept at skinning and mounting quadrupeds and birds.
“It’s all sheer laziness,” Mercer used to say pettishly.
“Not it,” I said. “I like the birds and things best unstuffed. They look a hundred times better than when you’ve done them your way.”
“But they won’t keep, stupid,” he cried.
“Good thing too. I’d rather look at them for two days as they are, than for two years at your guys of things.”
“What!” he cried indignantly. “Guys!”
“Well, so they are,” I said. “Look at that owl; look at the squirrel, with one hind leg fat and the other lean, and his body so full that he seems to have eaten too many nuts.”
“But those were some of the first stuffings,” he pleaded.
“But the last are worse,” I cried, laughing. “Then look at the rabbit. Who’d ever know that was a rabbit, if it wasn’t for his ears and the colour of his skin? He looks more like a bladder made of fur.”
“But he isn’t finished yet.”