Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/149

144 any bird, should, methinks, be quite proof enough of my extreme longing in the matter, therefore I fancy that you may be inclined to pardon me for the coolness of this request."

"Oh! as for that Madam Kurwie, I don't see anything particularly cool about your expressed wish for extended knowledge," replied a gaunt dame courtenie. "We shall only be too delighted to impart whatever we may know, of which so courteous and clever a stranger as yourself happens to be ignorant (the fear engendered by the kurwie's abrupt appearance on the scene had, thanks to her excessive suavity, quite departed), but, as far as I am able to see, it is almost impossible for us to comply with your wishes, and the reason thereof is obvious enough, as you will readily admit when I explain it to you." Before the conversation had reached so far, at a sign from the courtenie with whom the kurwie was holding converse, all the assembled courtenies had placed their wings across their backs, making it appear to the simple kurwie that they were wingless. "You see, you have very long wings of your own, which carry you whithersoever you may wish to go; now it is a noted fact that birds with wings, capable of flying, can never learn to catch fish and frogs as we do, nor is it possible for such birds to be taught either singing or dancing." The courtenie dame said all this so pat, and in such an emphatic manner, as could not help but impress the innocent kurwie with its truthfulness; she therefore hung her head most disconsolately; after a little consideration, however, she brightened up somewhat, as she asked—Whether there was not some means by which the mere