"I hope," said Dick, with a smile, "that for once Miss Folly may keep her promise. But what has become of her red cockatoo?"
"Ah, there's another great grievance!" cried Matty. "The bird must have been frightened by the explosion; and no wonder, for a terrible sight it was, and a horrible noise it made. Parade has flown off, no one knows whither; and though papers and placards about him have been put up in every direction, offering no end of rewards to whoever will bring him back, the bird is not to be found. Folly says, that poor innocent I must have hidden him somewhere from view; but I am sure that I have not even a guess whither the gaudy creature has fled!"
"Had you hidden him," observed Dick Desley, "Parade would soon have betrayed you by screaming out 'Ain't I fine?' And what has become of Pride?"
"Some say," replied Matty, "that he got a great blow on the nose at the time of the explosion; others say that he was not at all injured by it. He certainly did not help Duty to put out the fire. All that I know of Pride is, that he came to our villas this morning, and walked straight up to yours, I suppose from its being the one which he had been most accustomed to visit. I saw him from my window, standing awhile with folded arms, gloomily surveying the place; he then shrugged his shoulders, said, 'What a wreck!' and instantly stalked away."
"What did he mean by exclaiming 'What a wreck?'" asked Dick, with a look of surprise.
"He meant your poor cottage, of course," replied Matty; "all its furniture burned and destroyed."
"How—what?" exclaimed Dick in a startled tone; "the fire was not in my cottage at all; the explosion took place by yours."
"I know that too well," sighed poor Matty; "but Folly rushed straight into your home, blazing away like a rocket, then rushed out again, but not before she had set your curtains on fire."
"Do you mean that all my furniture is burned!" exclaimed Dick, striking his fist with violence upon a table that was near him.
"Burned to a cinder," replied Matty; "there's scarcely anything left but the grates."