“I have it! I have it!” shouted Caspar, without waiting to pursue the thread of conjecture that had occurred to him. “Yes, dear Karl, I know your scheme—I know it; and by Jupiter Olympus, it’s a capital one!”
“So you have guessed it at last,” rejoined Karl, rather sarcastically. “Well, it is high time, I think! The sight of that brass ring, with its engraved letters, should have led you to it long ago. But come! let us hear what you have got to say, and judge whether you have guessed correctly.”
“Oh, certainly!” assented Caspar, taking up the tone of jocular badinage in which his brother had been addressing him. “You intend making a change in the character—or rather the calling—of these lately arrived guests of ours.” Caspar pointed to the storks. “That is your intention, is it not?”
“Well?”
“They are now soldiers—officers, as their title imports—adjutants!”
“Well?”
“They will have no reason to thank you for your kind intentions. The appointment you are about to bestow on them can scarce be called a promotion. I don’t know how it may be with birds, but I do know that there are not many men ambitious of exchanging from the military to the civil service.”
“What appointment, Caspar?”
“If I’m not mistaken, you mean to make mail-carriers of them—postmen, if you prefer the phrase.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Karl, in a tone expressive of gratification at the clever manner in which Caspar had declared himself. “Right, brother! you’ve guessed my scheme to the very letter. That is exactly what I intend doing.”