THE BLACKBIRD
[Snapping up the snail.] I’ll make him look silly!

CHANTECLER [With a cry of horror.] Abominable!  To point a joke—­put out a little flame!  An end.  Here we part.  You have no more heart than soul. [Going.]

THE BLACKBIRD
[Hopping up on the fagot.] I have mind, however!

CHANTECLER
[Turning, disdainfully.] That is open to discussion.

THE BLACKBIRD [Acidly.] Oh, very well!  I was administering, in my merry little characteristic way, a grain of antidote against lunacy.  But I wash my claws of you.  Go ahead, justify the report of your enemies.

CHANTECLER
[Returning.] Who?  What?

THE BLACKBIRD
Strut about with your bill-board:  “I’m the whole show!”

CHANTECLER
You associate with those who hate me?

THE BLACKBIRD
Do you object?

CHANTECLER No, you pitiful jester!  The habit has grown so strong, you can no more be in earnest about friendship now than anything else. [Going nearer to him.] Who are my enemies?

THE BLACKBIRD
The Owls.

CHANTECLER
You sorry fool!  Can’t you see that to believe in my destiny becomes all
too easy if the Owls are against me?

THE BLACKBIRD
Rest happy, then.  They have a deal on—­your lighting of the world being
a trifle flashy for their taste—­a deal on for cutting your throat.

CHANTECLER
Through whom?

THE BLACKBIRD
A brother bird.

CHANTECLER
A Cock?

THE BLACKBIRD
A Saint George of a Cock, who is to meet you—­

CHANTECLER
Where?

THE BLACKBIRD
At the Guinea-hen’s.

CHANTECLER
What a farce!

THE BLACKBIRD Wait!  It’s one of those Cocks bred and trained for fighting, who would make just two bites of either you or me. [As CHANTECLER abruptly starts toward the back.] Where are you going?

CHANTECLER
To the Guinea-hen’s.

THE BLACKBIRD
Ha!  I forgot our knightly spurs and helmet! [He makes a feint of
preventing him.] Take my advice, don’t go!

CHANTECLER
But I will go!

THE BLACKBIRD
Hold on!

CHANTECLER
[Stopping beside the flower-pot, as if amazed.] How singular!

THE BLACKBIRD
What?

CHANTECLER
Did I understand you to say you came out of that flower-pot?

THE BLACKBIRD
You did.

CHANTECLER
[Incredulous.] But how could you possibly have got into it?

THE BLACKBIRD [Getting into the pot.] I told you, and tell you again!  Through that little black hole I was looking at the—­[He thrusts his bill through the hole at the bottom.]

CHANTECLER The earth!  And now through a little blue hole you shall look at the sky! [With a vigorous blow of his wing he turns the pot over the BLACKBIRD, who is heard fluttering beneath it, with smothered cries.] For you hate and shun the blue sky, you Dwellers in Pots!  But one can force you to see at least as much as would cover a corn-flower, by overturning your pot, now and then—­with the sweep of a wing! [Off.]