sition
(I allude, of course, to the top of the eight-day clock), which
circumstances led you somewhat hastily to decline. It would undoubtedly
have become you, and less cannot be said for such a situation as the
summit of an easel, overlooking the blackboard, in an establishment for
the education of youth. Meanwhile it may interest you to hear of a bird
(not of your wisdom, but with parts, and a respectable appearance) who
secured a somewhat similar seat in adopting that kind of home which you
would not. It was in driving through a wood at some little distance from
the above address that we found a wounded crow, and brought him home to
our hut. He became a member of the family, and received the name of
Slyboots, for reasons with which it is unnecessary to trouble you. He
was made very welcome in the drawing-room, but he preferred the kitchen.
The kitchen is a brick room detached from the wooden hut. It was once,
in fact, an armourer's shop, and has since been converted to a kitchen.
The floor is rudely laid, and the bricks gape here and there. A barrack
fender guards the fire-place, and a barrack poker reposes in the fender.
It is a very ponderous poker of unusual size and the commonest
appearance, but with a massive knob at the upper end which was wont to
project far and high above the hearth. It was to this seat that Slyboots
elevated himself by his own choice, and became the Kitchen Crow. Here he
spent hours watching the cook, and taking tit-bits behind her back. He
ate what he could (more, I fear, than he ought), and hid the rest in
holes and corners. The genial neighbourhood of the oven caused him no
inconvenience. His glossy coat, being already as black as a coal, was
not damaged by a certain grimeyness which is undoubtedly characteristic
of the (late) armourer's shop, of which the chimney is an inveterate
smoker. Companies of his relatives constantly enter the camp by ways
over which the sentries have no control (the Balloon Brigade being not
yet even in the clouds); but Slyboots showed no disposition to join
them. They flaunt and forage in the Lines, they inspect the ashpits and
cookhouses, they wheel and manoeuvre on the parades, but Slyboots sat
serene upon his poker. He had a cookhouse all to himself.... He died. We
must all die; but we need not all die of repletion, which I fear, was
his case. He buried his last meal between two bricks in the kitchen
floor, and covered it very tidily with a bit of newspaper. T