"How stupid I have been!" he thought to himself. "I wonder I never
thought of it before! I can stuff birds and beasts at any rate a
deal better than those wooden looking things. I might have a chance
of getting work at some naturalist's shop. I will get a directory
and take down all the addresses in London, and then go around."
He now became conscious of a conversation going on between a little
old man with a pair of thick horn rimmed spectacles and a sailor
who had a dead parrot and a cat in his hand.
"I really cannot undertake them," the old man said. "Since the
death of my daughter I have had but little time to attend to that
branch. What with buying and selling, and feeding and attending to
the live ones, I have no time for stuffing. Besides, if the things
were poisoned, they would not be worth stuffing."
"It isn't the question of worth, skipper," the sailor said; "and
I don't say, mind ye, that these here critturs was pisoned, only
if you looks at it that this was the noisiest bird and the worst
tempered thievingest cat in the neighborhood--though, Lord bless
you, my missus wouldn't allow it for worlds--why, you know, when
they were both found stiff and cold this morning people does have
a sort of a suspicion as how they've been pisoned;" and he winked
one eye in a portentous manner, and grinned hugely.
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