'What do your “birds” do in weather like this?' she said.
'Cling to their perches and wait patiently. It's the bad time with them when you don't hear them chirp.'
'Of course you foretold the gale.'
'Oh, well, it did not require a shepherd or a skipper for that.'
'Your grand gift will be useful to a yachtsman.'
'You like yachting. When I have tried my new schooner in the Channel, she is at your command for as long as you and Lady Dunstane please.'
'So you acknowledge that birds—things of nature—have their bad time?'
'They profit ultimately by the deluge and the wreck. Nothing on earth is “tucked-up” in perpetuity.'
'Except the dead. But why should the schooner be at our command?'
'I shall be in Ireland.'