An unfavourable silence followed this announcement. That old stubborn controversy about the woods!...
"Father," asked Webster, with his eyes on his plate, "did you ever see the Kentucky warbler?"
Webster's father looked over the top of the wood-pulp screen. His face had a somewhat vacant expression. He waited. Finally he said:
"My son, I believe you asked me a question: I shall have to ask you to repeat your question; I may be losing my hearing or I may be losing my mind. You asked me—?"
Webster, in the same deliberate tone, repeated his question:
"Did you ever see the Kentucky warbler?"
Webster's father looked over his spectacles at Webster's mother as with the air of an appeal for guidance:
"My dear, your son asks me, if I understand him, whether I have ever seen a Kentucky wooden war horse?"
He was not above fun-making and it seemed to him that the occasion called for it.
Webster's mother explained: