“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “Wretch! wretch! wretch! That’s what Polly would say if she could speak. See how you’ve pulled her to pieces.”
I looked up as he spoke, and there was the head with its queer glass eyes seeming to stare hard at me, and at the mess of skin and feathers on the bench.
“Well, I have pulled her to pieces, haven’t I, uncle?” I said.
“That you have, my boy,” he said, chuckling, as if he thought it very good fun.
“But I have learned how to stuff a bird, uncle,” I said triumphantly.
“And are you going to stuff Polly again?” he asked, gazing at the ragged feathers and skin.
I looked at him quite guiltily.
“I—I don’t think I could put this one together again, uncle,” I said. “You see it was so ragged and torn before I touched it, and the feathers are coming out all over the place. But I could do a fresh one. You see there’s nothing here but the skin. All the feathers are falling away.”
“Yes,” said my uncle, “and I know—”
“Know what, uncle?”