I grasped the utensil carefully between thumb and forefinger.  I sighted up in what I hoped was the manner of a champion darts player.

Whop-whop-whop-whop-whop went the little plastic fork, end over end over end.   Thop!   I scored a perfect bulls-eye on the middle pigeon.

There was a satisfying commotion of clucking and wing-flapping, as all of the pigeons jostled to get airborne first. (C’mon, c’mon, outta my way, Bub!)

They ascended to an altitude of maybe three feet.  Then as quickly as they had taken off, they landed.  The fork-struck pigeon turned and glared indignantly at me:

Oh, yeah?

I raised my hand.  The pigeons scrambled again, this time alighting on what they assumed to be the safer terrain of a few unoccupied chairs and a tabletop.  There they lingered, eyeing me warily.

Meanwhile, the whole tableful of tourists had turned to gape at me in bug-eyed astonishment.  To them, I was...utterly...monstrous!  I was a veritable stormtrooper!

There is a moving scene in Casablanca where all the patriots defiantly belt out the Marseillaise, right under the noses of the SS.  Something of the sort occurred to the tourists.

One of them tossed a morsel to the pigeons.  All of the others immediately joined in.   With both hands.  A small avalanche of tidbits and delicacies began pouring down on the puzzled birds.

My arsenal still included a plastic spoon and knife.   Aw, why not?

First went the spoon, to general flapping and clucking;  followed by redoubled intensity in the efforts of the tidbit-tossers.  The knife was next, with essentially similar results.

It began to occur to me that the situation might be getting out of hand.

Three tables away or not, perhaps it was better to explain the situation to the people.   I cleared my throat.

“Look,” I began in a loud, clear voice, “I’m sure that to you, these pigeons are cute.”  The tourists’ glares softened somewhat.  “And you know, with just a few of them like this, maybe they are kind of cute.”  (The reasonable-guy approach seemed to be working.)

“But that’s today,” I said, “with only four of them.  If you feed them, tomorrow there will be eight, and the next day there’ll be sixteen.   Within a week they’ll have overrun the place.  They’ll be all over the chairs, all over the tables.  Believe me, you wouldn’t want to eat here then.  So please, don’t feed the pigeons, huh?”

The man who seemed to be the head of the other group regarded me politely but quizzically.   After a pause, he made his response to my entreaty.  It consisted of one word:

“Francais?”

I looked from the man to the pigeons.

The pigeons were not regarding me in quite the same manner that the man was.  In their tiny little red eyes, there was written an unmistakable and altogether uncharitable degree of glee.