"the nights are
long, and one has time to sing--and sing! One could--"

"Why can't one, Twinky?" asked Whitey hopefully.

"Oh, we might try, but--er--well, bootjacks, you know, hair-brushes, old
shoes!--but it's very good exercise, this dodging."

"You said _singing_," corrected Whitey, rather puzzled. He didn't "know,"
but never having sung on roofs it was new and sounded thrilling. "Come
on," he urged; "let's!" They started in, and their voices rose into
awful sleep-destroying discords: "R-r-r-i-ah--M-m-r-r-riee--Mer-r-r-row!"
Louder and more banshee-like grew the noise till the expected missiles
began to arrive.

Twinkletoes Black was an expert dodger and skipped gracefully from place
to place, avoiding the brushes and bottles that dropped from the windows
of the tall apartment house next door.

Whitey had retired, silent, after the first old slipper landed heavily
on his tail; but he was admiring Mr. Black's prowess with his whole
heart. Nevertheless he was glad when the excitement was over with the
"song," and they settled down by the chimney once more. The crisp air
made him hungry, and again his thoughts turned birdward.

"Let's get some sparrows then," he said, as if there had been no
interruption since birds were spoken of. "The early bird, you know, and
it will be 'early' if we sit up much later. I never saw an early bird
myself, but I suppose there are such things. I prefer a morning nap
after these nights on. Haven't much use for _early_ birds, usually." (To
hear Whitey talk one would have thought he spent every night singing to
the moon--this was his first!)

"Not a bad idea, for a youngster," said Twinkletoes pleasantly.

The two edged a little nearer the warm bricks and waited, purring a
bumble-y duet to pass the time. "Just look at that moon!" sighed
Twinkletoes, still musically inclined. "Got whiskers or something,
hasn't it?" asked Whitey staring curiously at the illuminated
clock-face. Where he sat the moon was hidden by the chimney and
invisible to him.

"And it's sitting down on the tower!"

Stretching his neck excitedly that he might better see what made it act
so, he caught sight of the real moon and instantly subsided into the
meekest pussy that ever roamed a roof. "I--I don't understand December
moons very well," he apologized.

"So I see," Twinkletoes replied. "But how about your early birds? Hello!
Your _moon's whiskers_ say that it's after five o'clock, and that's not
early for