was. This was so extraordinary that I got up and went to him. As I
looked a curious doubt came upon me. He looked like Tweetie--(which had
become his baptismal name) he tilted his head and flirted and twittered
after the manner of Tweetie--but--could it be that he was NOT what he
pretended to be? Could he be a stranger bird? That seemed out of the
question as no stranger bird would have comported himself with such
familiarity. No stranger surely would have come so near and addressed me
with such intimate twitterings and well-known airs and graces. I was
mystified beyond measure. I exerted all my powers to lure him from his
branch but descend from it he would not. He listened and smiled and
flirted his tail but he stayed where he was.

"Listen," I said at last. "I don't believe in you. There is a mystery
here. You pretend you know me and yet you act as if you were afraid of
me--just like a common bird who is made of nothing but feathers. I don't
believe you are Tweetie at all. You are an Impostor!"

Believable or not, just at that moment when I stood there under the
bough arguing, reproaching and beguiling by turns and puzzled beyond
measure--out of the Nowhere darted a little scarlet flame of frenzy--
Tweetie himself--with his feathers ruffled and on fire with fury. The
robin on the branch actually WAS an Impostor and Tweetie had discovered
him red-breasted if not red-handed with crime. Oh! the sight it was to
behold him in his tiny Berseker rage at his impudent rival. He flew at
him, he beat him, he smacked him, he pecked him, he shrieked bad
language at him, he drove him from the branch--from the tree, from one
tree after another as the little traitor tried to take refuge--he drove
him from the rose-garden--over the laurel hedge and into the pheasant
cover in the wood. Perhaps he killed him and left him slain in the
bracken. I could not see. But having beaten him once and forever he came