THE BLACKBIRD [_On his f.a.got._] What an awf'ly lovely evening party!

THE SCREECH-OWL [_Oratorically._] Brethren of the Night--

THE GRAND-DUKE [_To the_ OWL _next to him._] The meeting-place seems to me particularly well chosen. The blackest spot, the moldiest tree. To the right, old postherds. To the left, in the dark between the hollies--the view!

THE SCREECH-OWL Brethren of the Night!--

AN OWL There comes the Mole!

SEVERAL VOICES Silence!

THE OWL She must have taken, to come here, a route below the roots of the daisies--

THE BLACKBIRD The subway, what else?

THE GRAND-DUKE [_To his neighbor._] Is that the Blackbird?

THE BLACKBIRD [_Coming forward._] Yes, your Grace. And the two agate b.a.l.l.s over there are the Cat.

THE GRAND-DUKE I can hear him licking his paws.

THE SCREECH-OWL [_Resuming._] Brethren of the Night! Inasmuch as everybody here--and we plume ourselves upon it!--is possessed of the evil eye--

ALL THE BIRDS [_Chuckling and rocking in their peculiarly disgusting and characteristic fashion._] Ha, ha!

THE GRAND-DUKE [_Spreading his wings to demand silence._] Hush! [_All return to their appalling stillness._]

THE BLACKBIRD My eye is merely roguish. I am here to look on, you know, without taking sides,--in the artist spirit, that's all.

AN OWL If you are not taking sides, then you are siding with us!

THE BLACKBIRD Oh, I say, what a primitive notion!

THE SCREECH-OWL [_Completing his sentence._] Let us express ourselves with simple and direct malevolence: the c.o.c.k is a robber!

ALL A robber! He robs us!

THE BLACKBIRD Now, what the--Robs you of what?

THE GRAND-DUKE Of health! Gladness!

THE BLACKBIRD How is that?

THE SCREECH-OWL By his crowing!

THE GRAND-DUKE His crowing brings on enlargement of the spleen and pericarditis! For it heralds--

THE BLACKBIRD [_Hopping about._] Oh, I see--The light!

[_All make a violent motion in his direction; the_ BLACKBIRD _frightened, hides among the f.a.gots._]

THE GRAND-DUKE [_Emphatically._] Never speak that word! When that word is spoken, Night at the horizon feels a crawling discomfort, a t.i.tillation underneath her wing.

THE BLACKBIRD [_Cautiously correcting himself._] The brightness of--[_General start of dismay repeated; the_ BLACKBIRD _again dodges behind the f.a.gots._]

AN OWL [_Hurriedly._] Never utter that horrible grating word, which so hatefully suggests the scratching of a match!

THE SCREECH-OWL You should express yourself: The c.o.c.k heralds the folding back of the pall--

THE BLACKBIRD But the day--[_Start and threatening gesture from all._]

ALL [_In voices of unspeakable anguish._] Not that word!

THE GRAND-DUKE You must refer to it as "that which will be!"

THE BLACKBIRD What difference does it make whether or not he heralds the--

ALL [_Stopping him._] Ha!

THE BLACKBIRD --the folding back of the pall, since that which will be--will be!

THE GRAND-DUKE [_In tones of despair._] Simple torture it is to hear a brazen throat forever reminding you of what you know to be only too true!

ALL [_Writhing in pain._] Too true! Too true!

THE GRAND-DUKE He begins while the night is still pleasant and cool--

CRIES ON ALL SIDES He is a robber, a thief!

THE GRAND-DUKE He cheats us!

ALL THE OWLS He cheats us! Cheats us!

THE GRAND-DUKE Of the good bit of night there still is left.

AN OWLET He compels us to leave our posts beside the warrens--

THE SCREECH-OWL Our feasts of steaming flesh!

THE WOOD-OWL The witches' routs where we ride perched on the fist of a hag!

THE GRAND-DUKE After c.o.c.k-crow an Owl is no longer in his normal state--

THE SCREECH-OWL He does evil in a hurry!

THE GRAND-DUKE And bungles it in consequence!

THE OLD HORNED-OWL As soon as the c.o.c.k has crowed all becomes temporary provisional--