When he and Bandy-legs had advanced a certain distance Max stopped and imitated the call of a screech-owl, so like the whinny of a horse.

And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide bodeful and feeble and fearful; or uproar (poltern), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,till the scent of the morning-air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day?

He was thinking about the characters in it and what a terrific imagination Mr. Baum must have had, when suddenly, out of the stillness of the house, came a weird screeching sound.