“Then he refused?” I said.
“Let me be quite fair,” said my father. “He rather temporized than actually refused.”
I could not help smiling a little sardonically.
“The distinction is a fine one,” I said. “I suppose he adduced some grounds?”
My father breathed heavily.
“He was insolent enough to remind me,” he said, “that it was eight o’clock on Saturday evening and that the bird in question, which had only just been set up, weighed approximately a quarter of a ton. He also suggested that the congregation ought to have an opportunity of inspecting it.”
“The congregation?” I cried. “But what has the congregation to do with it? It’s not putting its tongue out at the congregation.”
My father inclined his head.
“Precisely what I told him,” he said, “but he merely fell back upon his previous argument, that the exposure of the tongue, if indeed it were a tongue, was merely significant of good tidings.”
“I see,” I said. “So you gave him an ultimatum?”