Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/69

 Sometimes, when the dispute was settled, they forgot to pay him his fee. In spite of his helpful services he was rather the joke of the community. It is true he was queer, and birds are great gossips, painfully quick to criticize anything unusual. As you have noticed, birds are almost always well dressed, neat and trim in their appearance, and Lawyer Blackbird's awkward figure seemed to them absurd. They made rather cruel fun of him. When he went strolling thoughtfully about in the cool early morning, looking for his breakfast, a mischievous thrush would dart down in front of him and snatch up a worm or insect right from under his beak. They played practical jokes on him, stealing the caterpillars that his clients laid by his front door in payment of his services. They whistled mockingly from the neighbouring trees when he was studying, and screamed with laughter at his clumsy way of flying. Handsomer birds, such as cardinals, blue jays, orioles, sneered at his shabby black suit.

The younger set among the robins were most active in teasing him. Young robins are big lummoxy birds, full of high spirits, alert in their movements, proud of their smart tawny waist-