``I don't know how it is,'' he told his friend, ``I'm not
much over forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep
groove of elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same
tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its
accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at their
appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly,
punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It
distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to
take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest
year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year,
for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the
garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think
we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a
little irritating.''
``Perhaps,'' said the friend, ``it is a different
thrush.''
``We have suspected that,'' said J. P. Huddle, ``and I
think it gives us even more cause for annoyance. We don't
feel that we want a change of thrush at our time of life;
and yet, as I have said, we have scarcely reached an age
when these things should make themselves seriously felt.
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