Chapter 16
"Good-bye, boy!"
"All right, I'm going. Be good!"
"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to any promises.
For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into silent meditation once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his favourite problem--Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred to him that if he barked again it might help.
"Woof-woof-woof!"
Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real excitement. Something rather more das.h.i.+ng seemed to him to be indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage, ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And, as he gripped the door of the cage it swung open. Bill the parrot now perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had a bit of luck like this for months.
For a while he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding cautiously, he pa.s.sed out into the room. He had been out there before, but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It was an adventure. He hopped on to the window-sill. There was a ball of yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on he did not know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to be the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were the railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They ran the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a means of rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers pa.s.sed as Bill stood there looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be expected if you went out into the great world and that a parrot who intended to see life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles.
He crooned a little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the window-sill, with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the top of the railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself.
Arrived at the level of the street, he stood looking out.
A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.
The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding
"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.
He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, c.o.c.king his eye upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the stem. "A peris.h.i.+n' parrot, Erb."
"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.
"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter every moment. "That's a parrot, that is Erb. My brother Joe's wife's sister had one of 'em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a feller down at the Docks _She_ 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're called."
He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words of warning.
"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"
Henry seemed wounded.
"Woddyer mean, sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if you're kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer, mate?" he went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one half-closed eye.
"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.
"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "'Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they are!"
"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb the suspicious.
"Wot, 'im?" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't 'ave no piece out of my finger."
"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
persisted the sceptic.
"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
"Polly want a nut?"
Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good conduct for his species one cannot say; but for a while Bill merely contemplated temptation with a detached eye.
"See!" said Henry.
"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.
"_Wow-Wow-Wow_!" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and Henry--one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man--leaped back with a loud howl.
"'That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.
There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge of the sidewalk. Erb, having won his point, was silent once more.
Henry sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend the loan of that stick of yours, Erb," he said tensely.
Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken now and wis.h.i.+ng for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage, shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running round the corner with Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
"Good G.o.d!" said Freddie.
II
In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovingdon Square in the afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a _tete-a-tete_ involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry had occurred. Bill's shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre, brought them to a halt.
"What is it?" cried Jill.
"It sounds like a murder!"
"Nonsense!"
"I don't know, you know. This is the sort of street chappies are murdering people in all the time."
They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were rea.s.sured.
n.o.body could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb if there were a murder going on.
"It's a bird!"
"It's a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings."
A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects--and already this story has shown her far from perfect--she had the excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down Daubeny Street to his rescue--Freddie, spatted and hatted and trousered as became the man of fas.h.i.+on, following disconsolately, ruefully aware that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But Jill was cutting out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one neatly-gloved hand and did what he could to keep up.
Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking at a defenceless bird with a stick.