Jinty Ransom leaned out of her latticed window and smiled contentedly back at the genial sun.
"Ah, thou maid, come down and count over the crocus flowers!" called up Mrs. Barbara from the green lawn below. "I fear me that thief Mike has nipped off the heads of a few dozens, out o' pure wicked mischief."
Presently Jinty was flashing like a sunbeam in and out of the old house.
"I must go round and scold Mike, then I'll come, back for breakfast, Mrs. Barbara. Grandpapa's not down yet."
Mike on the War-path
But scolding's a game two can play at. Mike charged at Jinty with a volley of angry chatter and fierce flappings of his heavy black wings. It was no good trying to get in a word about the headless crocus plants or the seven stolen eggs.
"Anybody would think that I was the thief who stole them, not you!" indignantly said Jinty. Then Mike craned suddenly forward to give the straight little legs a wicked nip, and Jinty fled with shrieks, to the proud ecstasy of the raven, who "hirpled" at her heels into the dining-room, into the learned presence of the old professor, by whom the mischievous Mike was welcomed as if he were a prince of the blood.
The raven knew, none better, that he had the freedom of the city, and at once set to work to abuse it. A sorry breakfast-table it was in less than five minutes. Here and there over the white tablecloth Mike scuttled and scrambled. His beak plunged into the cream-jug, then deep into the butter, next aimed a dab at the marmalade, and then he uttered a wrathful shriek became the bacon was too hot for his taste.
"My patience! Flesh and blood couldn't stand this!" Mrs. Barbara came in, her hands in the air.
But the professor neither saw nor heard the old housekeeper's anger.