"Calhoun and cotton!" "Coal and codfish!" shouted the parrot at the top of his voice. "Catfish and coffee!"—"Rice cakes for breakfast"—"All in my eye, Betty Martin"—"Yarns and Yankees"—"Shad and shin-plasters"—"Yams and yaller boys," and so on, in a string of the most irrelevant alliteration and folly, that, like much other nonsense, evoked peals of laughter, by its unexpected utterance, and which at last mollified and brought out Major Favraud himself, from his dignified retirement.
"You have ruined the morals of my bird," said Madame Grambeau, reproachfully. "Approach, Favraud, and justify yourself. In former times his discourse was discreet. He knew many wise proverbs and polite salutations in French and English both, most of which he has discarded in favor of your profane and foolish teachings. He is as bad as the 'Vert-vert' of Voltaire. I shall have to expel him soon, I fear."
"Danton, how can you so grieve your mistress?" remonstrated Major Favraud, lifting at the same time an admonitory finger, at which recognized signal, a part of past instructions probably, the parrot burst forth at once in a series of the most grotesque and outré oaths ear ever heard, ending (by the aid of some prompting from his teacher) by dismally croaking the fragment of a popular song thus travestied:
"My ole mistis dead and gone,
She lef to me her ole jawbone.
Says she, 'Charge up in dem yaller pines,
And slay dem Yankee Philistines!'"—
ending with the invariable "Bon jour," or "Bienvenu, compatriote" and demoniac "Ha! ha! ha!"
"The memory of the creature is perfectly wonderful," I said. "Many parrots have I seen, but never one like this before. It must have sprung out of the Arabian Nights."
"I can teach any thing to every thing," digressed Major Favraud, "and without severity; it is my specialty. I was meant for a trainer of beasts, probably. I will get up an entertainment, I believe, in opposition to the industrious fleas, called the 'Desperate Doves,' and teach pigeons to muster, drill, and go through all the military motions. I could do it easily, and so repair my broken fortunes. I have one already at home that feigns death at the word of command. I have amused myself for hours at a time with this bird.—Don't say a word, Miss Harz," speaking low, "I see what you think of it all, but I have had to cheat misery some way or other. It was a wretched device and waste of existence, though. And when I see that great, distinguished man, who had such hopes of me as a boy, I feel that I could creep into an auger-hole for sheer shame of my extinguished promise."
"Not extinguished!" I murmured, "only under a cloud, still destined to be fulfilled."
"Only in the grave," he said, sadly, "with the promise common to all mankind;" and thus by gloomy glimpses I caught the truth.
We staid that night at the house of an aunt of Madame La Vigne's, who received us cordially, entertained us sumptuously, and dismissed us graciously.