Myra was not sorry for the holiday; it gave her time to examine the Memory-Saver carefully. She ran through the garden to a little nook by the duck-pond, where no one could see her, before she dared take him out of her pocket and look at him! Poor little Memory-Saver! She could hardly recognise him as the round, plump, cheery little fellow who had first beamed at her from the window-sill. He was quite flat, for Myra had sat on him in her excitement; he was soft and pulpy; his little pink eyes had retreated and lost colour, and his great mouth opened and shut in gasps, like that of a fish out of water.
Myra gazed at him horrified. What could she do to revive him? She turned him over and fanned him with a dock-leaf, but he only gasped. Then she tried the effect of a little geography, but the result was disastrous; as fast as it entered the poor little imp, it oozed out again all over him, and he turned almost green with pain.
"Why are you tormenting my offspring?" said a sharp, angry voice at Myra's elbow. "Leave him alone, or give him to me; I'm hungry!"
It was Myra's turn to gasp now; the Black Cock had never spoken to her before, and she did not even know he could talk. She looked at him more than half-frightened.
"He—he isn't yours, he's mine," she stammered.
"Yours, indeed!" crowed the Black Cock, indignantly, "when I had all the trouble of laying him! Wasn't he hatched from one of my eggs at midnight, and stolen by the Witch?"
"I didn't know he was," said Myra.
"Well, now you do!" retorted the Cock, "Give him up! Didn't I tell you I was hungry?"
"But you wouldn't eat your own child?" cried Myra, aghast.