“But something shall stop him,” said Joe. “I’ll have an iron bar driven into the ground, and tether him with a rope.”
“No good,” said Dyke drowsily: “he’d eat the rope and swallow the bar.”
“Then I’ll tether him with a piece of chain.”
“He’d roll it up and swallow it.—I say Joe, I feel sure he had that curb chain and the two buckles we missed.”
“Nonsense! Come, get up, and help drive him in.”
“I’m too tired, and it isn’t nonsense. He’s always on the lookout for bits of iron and broken crockery. I took a hammer and a cracked willow-pattern plate one day, and broke it up in bits and fed him with them. He ate them all.”
“Well, of course: birds do pick up stones and things to fill their gizzards.”
“And that’s just how I feel,” said Dyke.
“Eh? How?”
“As if my gizzard was filled with sharp bits of stone, and it makes me irritable and cross.”