"I haven't had him long, ma'am—only a day or two. He's been ill brought up, as you see, poor bird! I shall have a world of trouble to cure him of his bad language. If I can't cure him I'll wring his neck."
"The poor creature doesn't know better," said Mrs. Boxall. "Wouldn't it be rather hard to kill him for it?"
"Well, but what am I to do? I can't have such words running out and in of my princess's ears all day."
"But you could sell him, or give him away, you know, Mr. Kitely."
"A pretty present he would be, the rascal! And for selling him, it would be wickedness to put the money in my pocket. There was a time, ma'am, when I would have taught him such words myself, and thought no harm of it; but now, if I were to sell that bird, ma'am—how should I look Mr. Fuller in the face next Sunday? No; if I can't cure him, I must twist his neck. We'll eat him, ma'am; I dare say he's nice."
He added, in a whisper: "I wanted him to hear me. There's no telling how much them creatures understand."
But before Mr. Kitely had done talking, Mrs. Boxall's attention was entirely taken up with another bird, of the paroquet species. It was the most awfully grotesque, the most pitiably comic animal in creation. It had a green head, with a band of red round the back of it; while white feathers came down on each side of its huge beak, like the gray whiskers of a retired military man. This head looked enormous for the rest of the body, for from the nape of the neck to the tail, except a few long feathers on the shoulders of its wings, blue like those of a jay, there was not another feather on its body: it was as bare as if it had been plucked for roasting. A more desolate, poverty-stricken, wretched object, can hardly be conceived. The immense importance of his head and beak and gray whiskers, with the abject nakedness—more than nakedness, pluckedness—of his body was quite beyond laughing at. It was far fitter to make one cry. But the creature was so absolutely, perfectly self-satisfied, without a notion of shame, or even discomfort, that it appeared impossible he could ever have seen himself behind. He must sorely have fancied himself as glorious as in his palmiest days. And his body was so thin, and his skin so old and wrinkled—I wish I could set him in the margin for my younger readers to see him. He hopped from place to place, and turned himself round before the spectators with such an absence of discomposure, that one could not help admiring his utter sang-froid, almost envying his perfect self-possession. Observing that his guest was absorbed in the contemplation of the phenomenon, Mr. Kitely said:
"You're a-wondering at poor Widdles. Widdles was an old friend of mine I named the bird after before he lost his greatcoat all but the collar. Widdles! Widdles!"
The bird came close up to the end of his perch, and, setting his head on one side, looked at his master with one round yellow eye.
"He's the strangest bird I ever saw," said Mrs. Boxall. "If you talked of wringing his neck, now, I shouldn't wonder, knowing you for a kind-hearted man, Mr. Kitely."