"Does not your bird please you any longer?" asked Miller, the
official, as he came one day to inspect the Temple. "Do you have no
more sport with your canary?"
The boy shook his head, and as Simon was in the next room and so
could not strike him, he ventured to speak.
"It is no bird," he answered softly and quickly. "But I should like
to have a bird."
The good inspector nodded to the boy, and then went out to have a
long talk with Simon, and so to avert any suspicion of being too
familiar with, or too fond of, the prince. But after leaving the
Temple he went to his friends and acquaintances, and told them, with
tears in his eyes, about the little prisoner in the Temple, the
"dauphin," as the royalists used always to call him beneath their
breath, and how he wanted a living bird. Every one was glad to have
an opportunity of gratifying the wish of the dauphin, and on the
next day Miller brought the prince a cage, in which were fourteen
real canaries.
"Ah! those are real birds," cried the child, as he took them one
after the other and kissed them. The playing of the birds, which all
lived in one great cage, together with the automaton, was now the
only pleasure of the boy. He began to tame them, and among the
little feathered flock he found one to which he was especially
drawn, because he was more quiet than the others, allowed itself to
be easily caught, sat still on the finger of the prince, and,
turning his little black eyes to the boy, warbled a little, sweet
melody.
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