Oscar straightened up in his chair at once. It was astonishing what a change these few words made in his feelings.
"I believe Parker paid you forty dollars for that case of his, didn't he?" continued the druggist. "Well, I'm willing to pay the same price for one equally as good. How long will it take you to put it up for me?"
"About a week. I have all the birds I need; they are a fine lot, too, if I do say it myself—but I must make the case, you know."
"All right! Go to work as soon as you please. When it is finished, take it to my house—Mrs. Jackson will show you where to put it—and come here for your money. Remember, now, that I want nothing but game-birds. I don't care for snow-birds and canaries, like those you put in Parker's case."
"They were not canaries," said Oscar, who could hardly help smiling at the jolly man's ignorance of natural history. "They were gold finches—the little fellows you sometimes see picking the seeds out of thistles."
"Oh!" said Mr. Jackson. "Well, I don't want any of 'em. I want nothing but game-birds."
"I am sorry to say that I can't fill the order that way," replied Oscar. "The bottom of the case won't hold all the birds I intend to give you."
"You needn't put them all on the bottom. Stand them up in a tree, the way you did Parker's. The wood cock, snipe, and plover are small birds, and they could go up there as well as not."
It was now Oscar's turn to laugh.