THE BOOK: AN APOLOGY 7 



had conducted me. So huge a mass, so heavy and 

 stolid, as he stood there silently staring at me out of 

 his great expressionless boiled-gooseberry-coloured 

 eyes, waiting to hear what I had to say to him. I 

 said it, and handed him some papers, which I wanted 

 him to look at. But he was not listening, and when I 

 finished he held out the papers for me to take them 

 back. "No," he said, "I have too many calls on me 

 — I can't entertain it." "Will you kindly listen," I 

 said, then repeated it again, and he muttered some- 

 thing and taking the papers once more inclined his 

 head to indicate that the interview was over, and, 

 thanking him for his ready sympathy, I went my 

 way to someone else. 



My next visit was to an enthusiastic sportsman. 

 I told him where I had been, and he exclaimed that 

 it was a mistake, a waste of time. "That chunk of 

 a man is no good," he said. "If he sees a roast goose 

 on the table he knows what it is and he can dis- 

 tinguish it from a roast turkey, and that's all he knows 

 about birds." Perhaps it was all he knew, from the 

 natural history point of view at all events; yet even 

 this "chunk of a man" had doubtless felt something 

 of that common universal joy in a bird, which makes 

 the bird so much to us, for by-and-by it was with 

 his help that the order for the county was obtained. 



Here is a little incident in which we can see just 

 the feeling a bird is able to inspire in us. A friend 

 writes to me: 



I have just heard from Miss Paget, who says her most inter- 

 esting news is the visit of a gold-crested wren at the Connaught 



