among your marrowfat peas, gobbling and gabbling as if they believed in Dr. Gumming. And it is of no use to expel them — for they will return, and
“Often scared,
As oft return: a pert, voracious kind.”
When it is night they will go off with a great deal of preliminary talk to their respective boarding-houses; for these birds, though at times as quarrelsome as Sumatrans during the pepper harvest, are sociable and lodge together. The weak point of this arrangement is that often a bird — perhaps the middle one of a long row of closely packed snoozers — has a bad dream, or loses his balance, and instantly the shock flashes along the line. The whole dormitory blazes up at once with indignation, and much bad language is bandied about promiscuously in the dark. The abusive shower at length slackens, and querulous monosyllables and indistinct animal noises take the place of the septemfluous (Fuller has sanctified the word) vituperation, when some individual, tardily exasperated at the unseemly din, lifts up his voice in remonstrance, and rekindles the smouldering fire. Sometimes he suddenly breaks off, suggesting to a listener the idea that his next neighbor had silently kicked him; but more often the mischief is irreparable, and the din runs its course, again dwindles away, and is again relit, perhaps more than once before all heads are safely again under wing.
