"Now we shall get at the real history of the Feathered Kind," chuckled Pardus. "When the Jungle Dwellers fall out amongst themselves and make much clatter, there is always the chance of an easy Kill."
"Caw-aw-aw! It was this way," fairly snapped Crow. "A seller of small things, a box wallah, walking in an honest way fast after the palki of a great Sahib, even on the Red Road of Calcutta, by chance was struck by another palki and his box of many things thrown to the ground. Then this honest one of the straight face, Adjutant, seeing the mishap from his perch on the lion which is over the Viceroy's gate, swooped down like a proper Dacoit and swallowed some brown Eating which was like squares of butter, and made haste back to his perch. Even a Crow would have known better than that, for it was soap. And all day many of the Men-kind stood and looked at our baldheaded friend, for a great sickness came to him; and as he coughed, soap-bubbles floated upward. The Hindoos said it was a work of their gods."
"Just what I thought," grunted Pardus; "all clatter, and no true story of anything."
"Well," sighed Cockatoo wearily, "my Mem-Sahib always put me in a little house on the veranda at night. Though I didn't like it at all, still it was my house, and one day, in the midst of a rain, when I sought to enter, inside were two of the Cat young."
"AND AS HE COUGHED, SOAP BUBBLES FLOATED UPWARD."
"Kittens?" queried Sa'-zada.
"Ee-he-ah; and just behind me the old Cat with another in her mouth. Hard nuts! but such a row you never heard in your life. When I tried to drag the Kittens out, the Cat dug her beak——"