[MISCHIEVOUS JACK.]
“Jack” sunneth himself.
He studieth Entomology.
He disdaineth the Fair Sex.
He arrangeth the Table.
I am gradually learning to estimate rightly the responsibility of having a jackdaw loose upon the premises.
There is really no way of circumventing Jack’s craftiness except by keeping him shut up all day in an outdoor aviary. I feel sorry to be driven to this course, and would far rather let him roam where he pleases; but his mischievous pranks have become unendurable.
I thought to-day I had made a great discovery, and that by placing a large stuffed flamingo at the open French window I should effectually frighten the jackdaw from entering.
I found him in the drawing-room on my writing-table busy about some evil deed, so I held up the great stuffed bird, at which Jack cast one horrified glance and then fled precipitately out at the window as if his last hour had come. Now, I thought, by placing the flamingo near the window, I could leave the room with an easy mind. Vain hope! I came back after a few minutes and found the impertinent jackdaw hopping about as happy as a king. He had pulled to pieces a rare foreign insect I had just been setting on a piece of cork. He had overturned all the small curios he could find, had pulled all the pins out of a pin-cushion, and, worst of all, he had opened a Mudie book and torn its map and pages to ribbons. That book will have to become my property and remain a monument of Jack’s misplaced energy.
It was humiliating to think how he must have chuckled at my flamingo. He had seen through the device at once and had no idea of submitting to be scared away by such a bogie.