“He claimed that it was not so. He said that the majority of these birds looked towards the left.”
“But not with their tongues out,” I cried.
“He seemed to think so. He said it was symbolic of inward joy.”
“But good heavens,” I said, “I repeat it with all reverence, does he expect us to worship under conditions like that?”
“I’m sorry to say,” said my father, “that he had appeared to contemplate it prior to my insistence on its immediate removal.”
My heart gave a great leap.
“Then it’s being taken down?” I cried.
But my father stared at me with bulging eyes. My heart fell back again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s why I’m preparing my denunciation.”
It was a solemn moment. It was perhaps the solemnest moment that either of us had been called upon to experience, and even as I spoke, I felt that we were drawing towards the threshold of one of the greatest issues of our terrestrial life.