?
You are altogether too flattering." And then, in the same cheery voice
that Felix had heard on the first day he visited the King of Birds' hut,
M. Peyron began, in very decent style, to pour forth the merry sounds of
his rollicking song:

"Quand on conspi-re,
Quand sans frayeur
On peut se di-re
Conspirateur--
Pour tout le mon-de
Il faut avoir
Perruque blon-de
Et collet noir."

He had hardly got as far as the end of the first stanza, however, when
Methuselah, listening, with his ear cocked up most knowingly, to the
Frenchman's song, raised his head in opposition, and, sitting bolt
upright on his perch, began to scream forth a voluble stream of words in
one unbroken flood, so fast that Muriel could hardly follow them. The
bird spoke in a thick and very harsh voice, and, what was more remarkable
still, with a distinct and extremely peculiar North Country accent. "In
the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, King
Charles the Second," he blurted out, viciously, with an angry look at the
Frenchman, "I, Nathaniel Cross, of the borough of Sunderland, in the
county of Doorham, in England, an able-bodied mariner, then sailing the
South Seas in the good bark Martyr Prince, of the Port of Great Grimsby,
whereof one Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master--"

"Oh, hush, hush!" Muriel cried, unable to catch the parrot's precious
words through the emulous echo of the Frenchman's music. "Whereof one
Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master--go on, Polly."

"Perruque blonde
Et collet noir,"

the Frenchman repeated, with a half-offended voice, finishing his stanza.

But just as he stopped, Methuselah stopped too, and, throwing back his
head in the air with a triumphant look, stared hard at his vanquished and
silenced opponent out of those blinking gray eyes of his. "I thought I'd
be too much for you!" he seemed to say, wrathfully.

"Whereof one Thomas Wells, gent., under God, was master," Muriel
suggested again, all agog with excitement. "Go on, good bird! Go on,
pretty Polly."

But Methuselah was evidently put off the scent now by the unseasonable
interruption. Instead of continuing, he threw back his head a second time
with a triumphant air and laughed aloud boisterously. "Pretty Polly," he
cried. "Pretty Polly wants a nut. Tu-Kila-Kila maroo! Pretty Poll! Pretty
Polly!"

"Sing again, for Heaven's sake!" Felix exclaimed, in a profoundly
agitated mood, explaining briefly