Though my heart thumped with apprehension, my mouth was stretched in a broad grin. I felt that I should never tire of the spectacle before me. I realized that I had always hated the stuffed birds.
Coppertoes was busy with the owl, when a piercing scream came from behind me. I turned and found Mrs. Handsomebody gazing with horrified fascination at the orgy under glass. She took three steps forward, her eyes starting with horror.
"Come to life—" she gasped, in a strangled voice—"after all these years—and gone stark mad."
She fell, at full length, across the green and red medallions of the carpet.
Then, with a rush, Mary Ellen and the charwoman, Mrs. Coe, were upon us, and, after them, my brothers.
"Lord preserve us!" cried Mary Ellen, bending above her prostrate mistress, "what has come over the poor lady to be took like this?"
"Is she dead, do you fink?" asked The Seraph, on a hopeful note.
"Well, if she is, faith! 'tis yersilves has kilt her."
"She's just in a swoond," asserted Mrs. Coe, calmly. "Wot she needs is brandy. Yus, and terbaccer smoke blowed dahn 'er froat." Mrs. Handsomebody moaned.
"Better get her out of here," suggested Angel, his eye on Coppertoes who, sated by bloodshed, lay with wings outstretched, panting on the floor of the case.