Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped in for their game
of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a
racket that it was impossible to talk.

Bourais' face must have appeared very funny to Loulou. As soon as he
saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard, and
the neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh, too; and
in order that the parrot might not see him, Monsieur Bourais edged along
the wall, pushed his hat over his eyes to hide his profile, and entered
by the garden door, and the looks he gave the bird lacked affection.
Loulou, having thrust his head into the butcher-boy's basket, received
a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu
threatened to ring his neck, although he was not cruelly inclined,
notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he
rather liked the bird, and, out of devilry, tried to teach him oaths.
Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off
his chain and let him walk all over the house.

When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his
right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There
was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes
afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and cured him.
One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his cigar in his
face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the tip of her
umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.

She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a
second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the
bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any
attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: "Take care! you must be
insane!" Then she searched every garden in Pont-l'Eveque and stopped the
passers-by to inquire of them: "Haven't you perhaps seen my parrot?"
To those who had never seen the parrot, she described him minutely.
Suddenly she thought she saw something green fluttering behind the mills
at the foot of the hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she
could not see it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird
in Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon's store. She rushed to the place. The
people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came home,
exhausted, w