"You old thief and pickpocket," shrieked Mr. Kingbird, his head feathers standing up like an Indian chief's, "whose nest around here are you lying in wait to rob?"
"What business is it of yours?" retorted Mr. Jay with a sneer. "You old tyrant! A nice fellow, indeed, to be calling people names. The pot calling the kettle black. Humph!"
Mr. Kingbird, aware of the many young birds he had eaten in his time concluded he had best confine himself exclusively to the question of eggs.
"It's only a sneak," he replied, "that will creep up when the mother bird is off her nest and suck the eggs. Nobody but a coward would do it. The Mourning Dove's cries the other day were truly heartrending. I made up my mind then that the very first time you crossed my path I would thrash you."
"That's right, give it to him, give it to him!" cried the birds in chorus, a large number of which, attracted by the quarrel, had formed themselves into a ring about the tree tops. "He's not only a thief but a bully, always ready to whip a bird under his size."
Mr. Blue Jay winced for a second, for it is not pleasant to find one's self hated, by all his fellow kind.
"I'll swear," said he, lifting up one foot solemnly, "that I have not been near the Mourning Dove's nest this season."
"Nor the Red-eyed Vireo's?"
"Nor the Red-eyed Vireo's," affirmed Mr. Blue Jay, slightly closing one eye, and coughing behind his foot.
"Oh, oh, oh!" chorused a dozen voices, "we saw him around there this very morning."