o try and do another."

The starling was laid down, and a jay picked up.

"That's another one I tried," he said sadly, "but it never would look
like a bird. They're ever so much handsomer than that out in the
woods."

"I suppose,"--I said, and then quickly--"Are they?"

"Yes, you know they are," said Mercer dolefully. "These are horrid. I
know exactly how I want them to look, but they will not come so."

"They will in time," I said, to cheer him, for his failures seemed to
make him despondent.

"No," he said, "I'm afraid not. Birds are beautiful things,--starlings
are and jays,--and nobody can say that those are beautiful. Regular old
Guy Fawkes's of birds, aren't they?"

"You mustn't ask me," I replied evasively. "I'm no judge. But what's
this horrid thing?"

"Frog. Better not touch it. I never could get on with that. It's more
like a toad than a frog. It's too full of sand."

"Sand! Why, it's quite light."

"I mean, was too full of sand; it's emptied out now. I told you that's
how you stuff reptiles, skin 'em, and fill 'em full of sand till they're
dry, and then pour it out."

"Oh yes, I remember; but that one is too stout."

"Yes," said Mercer, "that's the worst of it; they will come so if you
don't mind. The skins stretch so, and then they come humpy."

"And what's that?" I asked. "Looks like a fur sausage."

"You get out with your fur sausages. See if you could do it better.
That's a stoat."

I burst out laughing now, and he looked at me in a disconsolate way, and
then smiled sadly.

"Yes, it is a beast after all," he said. "My father has got a book
about anatomy, but I never thought anything about that sort of thing
till I tried to stuff little animals. You see they haven't got any
feathers to hide their shape, and they've got so much shape. A bird's
only like an egg, with a head, and two wings on the side, so that if you
make up a ball of tow like an egg, and pull the skin over it, you can't
be so very far wrong; but an animal wants curves here and hollows there,
and nicely rounded hind legs, and his head lifted up gracefully, and
that--Ugh! the wretch! I'll burn it first chance. I won't try any more
animals."

"A squirrel looks nice stuffed," I observed, as I recalled one I had
seen in a glass case, having a nut in its fore paws, and with its tail
curved up over its back.

"Does it?" said Mercer dolefully; "mine don't."

"You have stuffed squirrels?" I said.

He