Nightingales 87 



of a certain German lady in the audience ; for hardly 

 had the fair Chairman reseated herself, when im- 

 mediately opposite me there jumped to her feet a 

 female who was positively alarming in the way in 

 which she screamed at me with strident German 

 tones, in broken English, glaring at me through a 

 most formidable pair of pince-nez, the state of her 

 biscuit-coloured hair giving one the idea that she 

 had quite lately been dragged through a hedge 

 backwards ! 



" I should like to ask ze lectur-r-^r, whezzer he 

 tink it is not vary cr-ruel to keep ze bir-rds in ze 

 cages. Ze lectur-r-er say he lofes ze bir-rds, and he 

 makes zem pr-r-isoners. It does seem as if he say 

 one ting, and do anozzer ! 



"And ze lectu-r-rer did say, dat ze Cr-reator has 

 been vary goot, and vary kind. Does he tink dat a 

 Cr-reator who makes de hawks kill ze poor leetle 

 bir-rds is goot and kind ? For myself, I do not 

 tink so." 



My exact answer I forget ; but I do remember 

 that when I sat down again, instead of the protesting 

 murmurs which had greeted the German Fraulein, 

 there was a very hearty round of applause, during 

 which Fraulein " Unglaubig " glared round her in- 

 dignantly at her fellow-members. 



At any rate, I tried to show how happy caged 

 birds could be under proper circumstances, and to 

 point out that though I had been very presumptuous 

 in addressing an assemblage of learned ladies — they 

 were all blue stockings, more or less — I hoped I was 



