CHAPTER XXI.
COPPERTOP AND THE OLD MOTHER-BIRD.
Miss Smiler sits on the White Elephant (p. 112).
“NO! you can’t. You can’t have another WORM!” said a strange voice.
Looking up, or down—Coppertop wasn’t quite sure which—she found to her amazement that she was no longer hanging by one leg to the palm tree, but was sitting in a large nest, made of sticks and clay, and surrounded by a nestful of very ugly chicks, all beaks and eyes! But what surprised her most was the hideous old Mother-bird—very like Mrs. Grudge—perched above them with a long, wriggling worm in her beak.
“Oh, goodness gracious!” she exclaimed. “I DO hope I haven’t been eating WORMS! And, however did I get here? And what am I?”
“What are you?” croaked the old Mother-bird, “a chick, like the rest, of course! Only you’ve the largest mouth of all, and a rampageous appetite for WORMS!”
“Yes,” admitted Coppertop, sorrowfully; “I have got a large mouth and little piggy eyes, and—and—the only nice thing about me is my hair——”