This bird is quite an oddball. He doesn’t sing just one song or one melody, like other birds, but he is a public speaker, he holds forth, making his speeches to the garden, and does so with a very loud voice full of dramatic excitement, leaping transitions, and passages of heightened pathos.

He brings up the most impossible questions, then hurries to answer them himself, with nonsense, makes the most daring assertions, heatedly refuting views that no one has stated, charges through wide open doors, then suddenly exclaims in triumph: “Didn’t I say so? Didn’t I say so?”

Immediately after that he solemnly warns everyone who’s willing or not willing to listen: “You’ll see! You’ll see!”
(He has the clever habit of repeating each witty remark twice.)

He never grows tired of filling the garden with the most blatant nonsense, and during the stillness that reigns while he’s giving his speeches, one can almost see the other birds exchanging glances and shrugging their shoulders.

“Sweet dumbhead!”

I don’t shrug mine; instead, I laugh every time with Joy. You see, I know that his foolish chatter is actually the deepest wisdom and that he’s right about everything.