“And young birds, too, sometimes, my boy. Flesh-eating things are not particularly in favour for one’s diet. Even the American backwoodsman who was forced to live on crows did not seem very favourably impressed. You remember?”
“No, uncle; it’s new to me.”
“He was so short of food, winter-game being scarce, that he had to shoot and eat crows. Someone asked him afterwards whether they were nice, and he replied that he ‘didn’t kinder hanker arter ’em.’”
“Well, I don’t ‘kinder hanker arter’ squirrel,” said Vane, merrily, “and I don’t ‘kinder hanker arter’ being a gipsy king ha—ha—as the old song says. You’ll have to make me an engineer, uncle.”
“Steam engineer, boy?” said the doctor, smiling.
“Oh, anything, as long as one has to be contriving something new. Couldn’t apprentice me to an inventor, could you?”
“To Mr Deering, for instance?”
Vane shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said, dubiously. “I liked— You don’t mind my speaking out, uncle?”
“No, boy, speak out,” said the doctor, looking at him curiously.