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Our avenue is strewn with the whole crop of autumn's withered leaves. There are quantities of decayed branches which one tempest after another has flung down, black and rotten, and one or two with the ruin of a bird's-nest clinging to them.
Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a bird's-nest.
Then one of the boys would shout in through the door, "Bin eatin' any ole stewed rats, Chinky?" and another would ask, "Give us a taste of yer bird's-nest pudding?"
In the early epochs of our race, men dwelt in temporary huts, of bowers of branches, as easily constructed as a bird's-nest, and which they built, if it should be called building, when such sweet homes of a summer solstice rather grew than were made with hands, which Nature, we will say, assisted them to rear where fruit abounded, where fish and game were plentiful, or, most especially, where the sense of beauty was to be gratified by a lovelier shade than elsewhere, and a more exquisite arrangement of lake, wood, and hill.
There is no better type or epitome of wild nature than the bird's-nest something built, and yet as if it grew, a part of the ground, or of the rock, or of the branch upon which it is placed; beginning so coarsely, so irregularly, and ending so finely and symmetrically; so unlike the work of hands, and yet the result of a skill beyond hands; and when it holds its complement of eggs, how pleasing, how suggestive!
That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy and bird's nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself." "Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?" "Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our old woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce? Scrumptious!"
Another fig envelops some of its branches, two umbrella-trees cling stubbornly to its sides, a pandanus palm grows comfortably at the base of a limb, tons of staghorn, bird's-nest, polypodium, and other epiphytal ferns, have licence to flourish, orchids hang decoratively, and several shrubs spring aspiringly among its roots. But the big tree still asserts its individuality.
Just then she caught sight of the clay bird's-nest that Pacific had modelled such a lovely bird's- nest that it had been kept for the cabinet.
We felt rather uneasy when he told us this, and thought we ought to be going, ourselves; but he hastily explained that this dinner, given in our honor, was not long and that we must go through all of it. Very easy going, I must say! After the bird's-nest soup came shark fins, another delicacy and also delicious.
"In which case he will or shall have been there whatever the verb is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll tax every laundry and chop-suey palace from the Bronx to the Battery to pay us." "I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's fin, bamboo-shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. Tutt. "Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, litchi nuts and preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt.
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