“But such birds as birds of paradise, uncle?” I said.
“Well, what should you suppose a bird of paradise to be?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, should you think it were a finch, Nat?”
“No, uncle,” I said at once.
“Well, it isn’t a pheasant, is it?”
“Oh no!”
“What then?”
I stood with a tanager in one hand, a lovely manakin in the other, thinking.
“They couldn’t be crows,” I said, “because—”