Nestor: Well, Timothy, did you see the Widow Broderick in the Court?
Ward: I did see her. It is in it she is, now, looking as content as in the coffin, and she paying her debt.
Nestor: Did she give you any account of herself?
Ward: She did to be sure, and to the whole Court; but look here now, I have no time to be talking. I have to be back there when the magistrates will have their lunch taken. Now you being so clever a man, Mr. Nestor, what would you say is the surest way to go catching birds?
Nestor: It is a strange thing now, I was asked the same question not three minutes ago. I was just searching my mind. It seems to me I have read in some place it is a very good way to go calling to them with calls; made for the purpose they are. You have but to sit under a tree or whatever place they may perch and to whistle ... suppose now it might be for a curlew.... (Whistles.)
Timothy Ward: Are there any of those calls in the shop?
Nestor: I would not say there are any made for the purpose, but there might be something might answer you all the same. Let me see now.... (Gets down a box of musical toys and turns them over.)
Ward: Is there anything now has a sound like the croaky screech of a jackdaw?
Nestor: Here now is what we used to be calling a corncrake.... (Turns it.) Corncrake, corncrake ... but it seems to me now that to give it but the one creak, this way ... it is much like what you would hear in the chimney at the time of the making of the nests.
Ward: Give it here to me!