A SURPRISED CLERK 3 



" I beg your pardon. I am neither old nor daft. You 

 keep a public house, to which all respectable folk should 

 be welcome. I am an eminently respectable man. You 

 have no moral or legal right to treat a gentleman rudely." 



" Well, old fellow, leave your sticks in the wood-shed, 

 and I will give you a room in the attic the rest of the 

 rooms are to be occupied to-night. The judge, jury, and 

 witnesses are to be here. That is the best I can do." 



" But I must take the nest to my room. I wish to 

 paint it before anything happens to disarrange it to paint 

 it just as the eagle left it on the cliff. I came near fall- 

 ing over the cliff to secure it. I tied a rope to a tree 

 on the cliff, and let myself down by it over the edge of 

 the cliff, when it makes me dizzy to think of it! the 

 tree bent over. It has been dry weather, and the soil is 

 shallow on the surface of the rock. I periled my life 

 to secure that nest. I would not sell it for pounds, for 

 doubloons, for napoleons, for anything." 



The clerk stared. 



" You must be loony ! " 



"Sir?" 



" You must be daft a little off not quite all there. 

 I wouldn't give a penny for the nest for kindling wood 

 on a cold day in winter. What can that rotting rub- 

 bish be to you? " 



"My life my life is in it. Oh, you don't know! 

 You can't see! What power taught the inhabitant of the 



