red. As his vessel seemed to have been cut in
two, his wife expected and feared his return for a long time, for
if there had been a collision he alone might have been picked up and
carried afar off.

Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid of
him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar or a
peddler would enter suddenly.

One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her husband,
while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped before the
house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose furniture
was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction. He had green
feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with a displeased
look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that can talk like a
lawyer, three francs!"

A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said:

"You ought to buy that, you who are rich. It would be good company for
you. That bird is worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always
sell it for twenty or twenty-five!"

Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a
little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was
opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit her
finger and drew blood.

"Oh, how naughty he is!" she said.

Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it pruning
its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new mistress.
On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman
distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: "Are you going to
get up, carrion?"

Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when
Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout
those well-known words into her ears.

Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing which
she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she murmured:
"Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he has come
back!"

Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling, she
stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching, ready
to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window, she saw
nothing, and she said to her self: "He must be hidden."

She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:
"I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here."

A little reassured,