“Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!” groaned my father inwardly; but he changed not a muscle of his face, and said stolidly to Professor Hanky, “I think you must be right, sir; but there was nothing said about it to me, I was only told to bring the birds.”
Thus tenderly did he water the Professor’s second seedling. But Panky had his seedling too, and, Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky’s should flourish while his own was withering.
“And what, pray, my man,” he said somewhat peremptorily to my father, “are those two plucked quails doing? Were you to deliver them plucked? And what bird did those bones belong to which I see lying by the fire with the flesh all eaten off them? Are the under-rangers allowed not only to wear the forbidden dress but to eat the King’s quails as well?”
The form in which the question was asked gave my father his cue. He laughed heartily, and said, “Why, sir, those plucked birds are landrails, not quails, and those bones are landrail bones. Look at this thigh-bone; was there ever a quail with such a bone as that?”
I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was really deceived by the sweet effrontery with which my father proffered him the bone. If he was taken in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish unwillingness to allow any one to be better informed on any subject than he was himself.
My father, when I suggested this to him, would not hear of it. “Oh no,” he said; “the man knew well enough that I was lying.” However this may be, the Professor’s manner changed.
“You are right,” he said, “I thought they were landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds are landrails, but there is little light, and I have not often seen them without their feathers.”
“I think,” said my father to me, “that Hanky knew what his friend meant, for he said, ‘Panky, I am very hungry.’”
“Oh, Hanky, Hanky,” said the other, modulating his harsh voice till it was quite pleasant. “Don’t corrupt the poor man.”
“Panky, drop that; we are not at Bridgeford now; I am very hungry, and I believe half those birds are not quails but landrails.”