“‘Indeed!’ says he, an’ he got quite excited, ‘how interestin’! An’ do you know anythin’ about their habits?’
“‘If you mean by that their ways o’ goin’ on,’ says I, ‘there’s hardly a thing about ’em that I don’t know, except what they think, an’ sometimes I’ve a sort o’ notion I could make a pretty fair guess at that too.’
“‘Will you come to my camp and spend the night with me?’ he asked, gettin’ more an’ more excited.
“‘No, stranger, I won’t,’ says I; ‘but if you’ll come to mine I’ll feed you an’ make you heartily welcome,’ for somehow I’d took quite a fancy to the critter.
“‘I’ll go,’ says he, an’ he went an’ we had such a night of it! He didn’t let me have a wink o’ sleep till pretty nigh daylight the next mornin’, an’ axed me more questions about birds an’ beasts an’ fishes than I was iver axed before in the whole course o’ my life—an’ it warn’t yesterday I was born. I began to feel quite like a settlement boy at school. An’ he set it all down, too, as fast as I could speak, in the queerest hand-writin’ you ever did see. At last I couldn’t stand it no longer.
“‘Mister Ornithologist’ says I.
“‘Well,’ says he.
“‘There’s a pecooliar beast in them parts,’ says I, ‘’as has got some pretty stiff an’ settled habits.’
“‘Is there?’ says he, wakin’ up again quite fresh, though he had been growin’ sleepy.
“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘an’ it’s a obstinate sort o’ brute that won’t change its habits for nobody. One o’ these habits is that it turns in of a night quite reg’lar an’ has a good snooze before goin’ to work next day. Its name is Mahoghany Drake, an’ that’s me, so I’ll bid you good-night, stranger.’