"Tse! tse! tse!" Dick would chirp, and then say, "Doctor, will you go a clinking?"
To Dick a fly was always a clink, and clinking meant fly-hunting. Perched on his master's finger he would be carried around the room and held up to every resting fly. He never missed one.
As Dick grew older he became more of a tyrant to his wife. She could do nothing to please him, he attacked her every morning and the last thing at night and half-starved her besides.
Sometimes she used to peck him back, driven to it by his ill temper, and this led Dick's master to play him a trick. One day when Dick had bullied her worse than ever, he took Hezekiah out of the cage and fastened a small pin to her bill, the point sticking out a little.
When she was put back Dick accused her of "going on shore without leave," and pecked her so viciously that she gave him a sharp peck in return. That Dick jumped when he felt the pin may well be said, and his look was comical as he cried out, "Eh! What d'ye say? Hezekiah! Hezekiah!"
Hezekiah, pleased with her success, now chased him round and round the cage, punishing him until the doctor opened the door and let the victim out.
But the bird could not spend her life with a pin tied to her bill, and in the end, to stop the family quarrels, the doctor gave her away to a friend and Dick was left alone.
For this strange story of a talking starling we are indebted to Robert Cochrane, who gives it in his book "Four Hundred Animal Stories." That any bird could talk with so much sense and reason seems hard to believe, though the writer is good authority. Here is his wind up of Dick's story:
"Poor Dickie! One day he was shelling peas to himself in the garden, when some boys startled him and he flew away. I suppose he lost himself and could not find his way back. At all events I only saw him once again. I was going down through an avenue of trees about a mile from the house, when a voice in a tree above hailed me: 'Doctor! doctor! What is it?' That was Dick; but a crow flew past and scared him again, and away he flew—for ever."