utiny.

Presently his cheerful listlessness changed sharply to an attitude of
vexed attention. In a scrap-book of drawings and caricatures belonging
to one of his nephews he had come across an unkindly clever sketch of
himself and his parrot, solemnly confronting each other in postures of
ridiculous gravity and repose, and bearing a likeness to one another
that the artist had done his utmost to accentuate. After the first
flush of annoyance had passed away, Groby laughed good-naturedly and
admitted to himself the cleverness of the drawing. Then the feeling of
resentment repossessed him, resentment not against the caricaturist who
had embodied the idea in pen and ink, but against the possible truth
that the idea represented. Was it really the case that people grew in
time to resemble the animals they kept as pets, and had he
unconsciously become more and more like the comically solemn bird that
was his constant companion? Groby was unusually silent as he walked to
the train with his escort of chattering nephews and nieces, and during
the short railway journey his mind was more and more possessed with an
introspective conviction that he had gradually settled down into a sort
of parrot-like existence. What, after all, did his daily routine amount
to but a sedate meandering and pecking and perching, in his garden,
among his fruit trees, in his wicker chair on the lawn, or by the
fireside in his library? And what was the sum total of his
conversation with chance-encountered neighbours? "Quite a spring day,
isn't it?" "It looks as though we should have some rain." "Glad to
see you about again; you must take care of yourself." "How the young
folk shoot up, don't they?" Strings of stupid, inevitable perfunctory
remarks came to his mind, remarks that were certainly not the mental
exchange of human intelligences, but mere empty parrot-talk. One might
really just as well salute one's acquaintances with "Pretty polly.
Puss, puss, miaow!" Groby began to fume against the picture of himself
as a foolish feathered fowl which his nephew's sketch had first
suggested, and which his own accusing imagination was filling in with
such unflattering detail.

"I'll give the beastly bird away," he said resentfully; though he knew
at the same time that he would do no such thing. It would look so
absurd after all the years that he had kept the parrot and made much of
it suddenly to try and find it a new home.

"Has my brother arriv