It was summertime, years ago, in the early days of the war.
Having distributed myself quite satisfactorily within a hammock, I had just decided that nothing short of invasion or the luncheon bell should disturb me, when my flapper niece shot forth in my direction from the French windows of the morning-room.
In one hand she flourished an empty birdcage and in the other what proved to be a tin of enormous hemp seeds.
"Wake up!" she cried as she approached rapidly through the near distance. "The precious Balaam has escaped! The brute must have got out while I was fetching his clean water, and the windows were wide open!"
The prospect of a canary hunt across country with a temperature at 80 degrees in the shade positively made me shiver.
"Your father is the man to catch it for you, Eileen," I suggested. "He's most awfully good at catching things. I—er think he's somewhere on the tennis-court."
"He's not, because he was splashing about in the bathroom just now when I wanted to fill Balaam's water-bottle."
"All right," I said resignedly, "I'll come. Was Balaam the man or the ass? I forget. And while we're at it why should you call the bird Balaam at all?"
Eileen was in no mood for foolish questionings.
"Get up!" she ordered. "I call him Balaam because he's not a proper canary—he's a mule."