e did get it--and
Blanche was helping him.

CHAPTER IV

VERY MYSTERIOUS

SATURDAY came at last. Of course jolly things and times _do_ come,
however long the waiting seems. But the worst of it is that they are so
soon gone again, and then you wish you were back at the looking forward;
perhaps, after all, it is often the jolliest part of it.

Clement says I mustn't keep saying 'jolly'; he says 'nice' would be
better in a book. He is looking it over for me, you see. _I_ think
'nice' is a girl's word, but Clem says you shouldn't write slang in a
book, so I try not to; though of course I don't really expect this story
ever to be made into an actual book.

Well, Saturday came, and Peterkin and I set off to Mrs. Wylie's. She was
a very nice person to go to see; she seemed so really pleased to have
us. And she hadn't turned into a frog, or anything of the kind. She was
standing out on the little balcony, watching for us, with a snowy-white,
fluffy shawl on the top of her black dress, which made her seem more
fairyish, or fairy-godmotherish, than ever. I never did see any one so
beautifully neat and spotless as she always was.

As soon as the front door was opened, we heard her voice from upstairs.

'Come up, boys, come up. Polly and I have both been watching for you,
and he is in great spirits to-day, and so amusing.'

We skurried up, and nearly tumbled over each other into the
drawing-room. Then, of course, Peterkin's politeness came into force,
and he walked forward soberly to shake hands with his old lady and give
her mamma's love and all that sort of thing, which he was much better at
than I. She had just stepped in from the balcony, but was quite ready to
step out again at the parrot's invitation.

'Come quick,' he said, 'Polly doesn't like waiting.'

[Illustration: NO SOONER DID HE CATCH SIGHT OF US TWO WITH HIS UGLY
ROUND BEADY EYES . . . THAN HE SHUT UP.--p. 52.]

Really it did seem wonderful to me, though he wasn't the first parrot I
had ever seen, and though I had heard him before--it did seem wonderful
for a bird, only a bird, to talk so sensibly, and I felt as if there
might be something in Peterkin's idea that he was more than he seemed.
And to this day parrots, clever ones, still give me that feeling.

They are very like children in some ways. They are so 'contrairy.' You'd
scarcely believe it, but no sooner did the creature catch sight of us
two with his ugly, round, painted-bead-looking eye