one, travelling salesman of blighting corrosive laughter, and the other, brainless ambassador of Fashion, their mission to kill among us love and labour, the first by persiflage, the second by display,—­they have brought to us, even here in our peaceful sunny corner, the two pests, the saddest in the world, the jest which insists on being funny at any cost, and the cry which insists on being the latest scream! [The BLACKBIRD is heard tentatively whistling, “How sweet to fare afield".] You, Cock, who had the sense to prefer the grain of true wheat to the pearl, how can you allow yourself to be taken in by that villainous Blackbird!  A bird who practises a tune!

CHANTECLER
[Indulgently.] Come, he whistles his tune like many another!

PATOU [Unwillingly agreeing, in a drawling growl.] Ye-e-es, but he never whistles it to the end!

CHANTECLER
[Watching the BLACKBIRD hopping about.] A light-hearted fellow!

PATOU [Same business.] Ye-e-es, but he lies heavy on our hearts.  A bird who takes his exercise indoors!

CHANTECLER
You must own he is intelligent!

PATOU [In a longer, more hesitant growl.] Ye-e-e-es!  But not so very!  For his eye never brightens with wonder and admiration.  He preserves before the flower—­of whose stalk he sees more than of its chalice—­the glance which deflowers, the tone which depreciates!

CHANTECLER
Taste, my dear fellow, he unmistakably has!

PATOU
Ye-e-e-es!  But not much taste!  To wear black is too easy a way of having
taste!  One should have the courage of colours on his wing.

CHANTECLER
You will admit at least that he has an original fancy.  No denying that
he is amusing.

PATOU Ye-e-es—­No!  Why is it amusing to adopt a few stock phrases and make them do service at every turn?  Why amusing to miscall, exaggerate, and vulgarise?

CHANTECLER
His mind has a diverting, unexpected turn—­

PATOU Ready but cheap!  I cannot think it particularly brilliant to remark, with a knowing wink, at sight of an innocent cow at pasture, “The simple cow knows her way to the hay!” Nor do I regard it as evidence of notable mental gifts to answer the greeting of the inoffensive duck, “The quack shoots off his mouth!” No, the extravagances of that Blackbird, who makes me bristle, no more constitute wit than his slang achieves style!

CHANTECLER
He is not altogether to blame.  He wears the modern garb.  See him there
in correct evening dress.  He looks, in his neat black coat—­

PATOU
Like a beastly little undertaker who, after burying Faith, hops with
relief and glee!

CHANTECLER
There, there!  You make him blacker than he is!

PATOU
I do believe a blackbird is just a misfit crow!

CHANTECLER
His diminutive size, however—­

PATOU [Vigorously shaking his ears.] Oh, be not deceived by his size!  Evil makes his models first on a tiny scale.  The soul of a cutlass dwells in the pocket-knife; blackbird and crow are of the selfsame crape, and the striped wasp is a tiger in miniature!