"Facts are facts," he answered shortly, shutting his mouth with a little snap.

"Unless this bird has been deliberately taught historical details in an archaic diction--and a shipwrecked sailor is hardly likely to be antiquarian enough to conceive such an idea--he is undoubtedly a survival from the days of the Commonwealth or the Restoration.

And you say he runs on with his tale for an hour at a time! Good heavens, what a thought! I wish we could manage to start him now.

Does he begin it often ?" "Monsieur," the Frenchman answered, "when I came here first, though Methuselah was already very old and feeble, he was not quite a dotard, and he used to recite it all every morning regularly.

That was the hour, I suppose, at which the master, who first taught him this lengthy recitation, used originally to impress it upon him.