t, only to find that the thing had escaped
him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night,
saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers
crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before
he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was
pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on
to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him
in an expression of scornful derision.

"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set
the dogs on to it."

He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.

"It's a jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we find it
out of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the
underkeeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats like a flash. Your spaniel
has not got spirit enough for this sort of game." They brought the dogs
into the house, and the keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the slippers,
and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but all three
were welcome. Even false security is better than no security at all.

For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the
dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of
periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in
place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When
once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would
often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of
captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts
and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and
singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.

"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as
she came into the study one afternoon toward dusk with a step-ladder.
"You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs.
Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when
he fancies he's hungry. You're far too soft-hearted."

"Well, sir, I see he's right out of reach now on that picture rail, so
if you wouldn't mind closing the door, sir, when you leave the room,
I'll bring his cage in to-night and put some meat inside it. He's that
fond of meat, though it does make him pull out his feathers to suck the
quills. They _do_ say that if you cook--"

"Never mind, Mrs.