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“ Eileen was in no mood for foolish questionings.
"Get up!" she ordered. "I call him Balaam because he's not a proper canary—he's a mule."
"That I am not at all sure," I began hopefully, "that I can countenance the keeping of mules in birdcages! Should the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals get to hear of it, they would certainly———"
"There he is!" interrupted Eileen shrilly as something yellowish flew jerkily across a neighbouring cabbage bed. "That's Balaam! Take the cage, I'll wait here in case he comes back!" ”

“ When, a dishevelled wreck, I reached my own gateway, I was met in the drive by Eileen.
"IT's all right after all," she remarked cheerfully. "The stupid bird was on the curtain pole all the time. So lucky, because, if he had got out, it would have meant an awful bother. And, I say, is it true that they've caught a German spy down in the village?" ”

“ By the time I had reached the further end of the cabbage bed I was just in time to see a tawny bird vanish over a hedge, flop tantalisingly across the road and disappear among the branches of an apple-tree on the other side. ”