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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--
