he couple left the ship and proceeded down the East India Dock Road
side by side, the only incident being a hot argument between a constable
and the engineer as to whether he could or could not be held responsible
for the language in which the parrot saw fit to indulge when the steward
happened to drop it.

The engineer took the cage at his door, and, not without some
misgivings, took it upstairs into the parlour and set it on the table.
Mrs. Gannett, a simple-looking woman, with sleepy brown eyes and a
docile manner, clapped her hands with joy.

"Isn't it a beauty?" said Mr. Gannett, looking at it; "I bought it to be
company for you while I'm away."

"You're too good to me, Jem," said his wife. She walked all round the
cage admiring it, and the parrot, which was of a hugely suspicious and
nervous disposition, having had boys at its last place, turning with
her. After she had walked round him five times he got sick of it, and in
a simple sailorly fashion said so.

"Oh, Jem," said his wife.

"It's a beautiful talker," said Gannett hastily, "and it's so clever
that it picks up everything it hears, but it'll soon forget it."

"It looks as though it knows what you are saying," said his wife. "Just
look at it, the artful thing."

The opportunity was too good to be missed, and in a few straightforward
lies the engineer acquainted Mrs. Gannett of the miraculous powers with
which he had chosen to endow it.

"But you don't believe it?" said his wife, staring at him open-mouthed.

"I do," said the engineer firmly.

"But how can it know what I'm doing when I'm away?" persisted Mrs.
Gannett.

"Ah, that's its secret," said the engineer; "a good many people would
like to know that, but nobody has found out yet. It's a magic bird, and
when you've said that you've said all there is to say about it."

Mrs. Gannett, wrinkling her forehead, eyed the marvellous bird
curiously.

"You'll find it's quite true," said Gannett; "when I come back that
bird'll be able to tell me how you've been and all about you. Everything
you've done during my absence."

"Good gracious," said the astonished Mrs. Gannett.

"If you stay out after seven of an evening, or do anything else that
I shouldn't like, that bird'll tell me," continued the engineer
impressively. "It'll tell me who comes to see you, and in fact it will
tell me everything you do while I'm away."

"Well, it won't have anything bad to tell of me," said Mrs. Gannett
composedl