"Everything? No; only a few things."
"But you know 'bout birds—robins—jus' liddle robins?"
Her inflections denounced it a crime not to know. He was not proof against this, or against these.
"Oh, yes," he said; "of course."
"Aha! Of course. Tha' 's what I all times thinging. Tha' 's mis-take, by you?"
They could laugh together now.
"Ah! Tell me, then, if you please, when do those robin nest again? Me? I thing it is later than in Japan, is it not? Account—jus' account the robin nesting again jus' now in Japan."
The consul said yes because the girl so evidently desired it not because he knew.
"Aha! Tha' 's what I thing. Later—moach later than in Japan, is it not?" Again her fervid emphasis obliged him to say yes, somewhat against his conscience.
"An'—sa-ay! When somebody gitting marry with 'nother body at your America, don' he got stay, marry?"
"Usually—yes; decidedly yes; even sometimes when he does n't wish to."
"An' don' madder where they live?"
"Not at all."
