“Where do you get food for them?”
“I buy meat or beg it; and, in fact, all the family but Titus think that I’m taking a raw-meat cure. Titus caught on to me, though I don’t know whether he understands what kind of creatures I’m feeding.”
“I hope you don’t keep them in that little box at night?”
“O, no; I let them fly about my room at night. They sleep all day.”
The Judge put on his eyeglasses and stared at the little feathered creatures, who were sleepily blinking their eyes.
“Would they fly away if you let them out?”
“I don’t think so, sir. My father used to let them out at night, and they would catch sparrows and bring them to our room and eat them.”
“How curious!” remarked the Judge. Then he went on, “We have no cats about the house. Let them have their liberty, but give them plenty of meat. We have not too many sparrows here.”
Dallas looked sharply at him, but the Judge, taking no notice of his glance, calmly put his glasses in their case and returned them to his pocket. Then he said, irrelevantly, “Dallas, are you wholly English?”
“No, sir; only on my father’s side. My mother was a Western girl.”