“What is she bellowing for?” I asked.
“Well,” said the boy, “it’s only a theory, o’ course, but I should sy, from the look of ’er, that she wanted to be milked.”
“But it started bellowing at half-past two,” I argued. “It doesn’t expect to be milked at half-past two, does it?”
“Meself,” said the boy, “I’ve given up looking for sense in cows.”
In some unaccountable way this boy was hypnotising me. Everything had suddenly become out of place.
The cow had suddenly become absurd: she ought to have been a milk-can. The wood struck me as neglected: there ought to have been notice-boards about, “Keep off the Grass,” “Smoking Strictly Prohibited”: there wasn’t a seat to be seen. The cottage had surely got itself there by accident: where was the street? The birds were all out of their cages; everything was upside down.
“Are you a real farmer’s boy?” I asked him.
“O’ course I am,” he answered. “What do yer tike me for—a hartist in disguise?”
It came to me. “What is your name?”
“’Enery—’Enery ’Opkins.”