"If you could answer as many questions as you can ask, you'd be more than half bright."
"Jerry Martin, are you calling me a moron? You know I get better grades in school than you do."
"Who called you a moron?"
"You did."
"I did not. I didn't say how much more than half bright you'd be if you could answer as many questions as you ask."
"You're—you're impossible."
Jerry turned the television on. As a singing commercial came on, the parrot laughed a raucous laugh.
"Say, he may not know how to speak English but that parrot's got sense," said Jerry admiringly.
A door above opened. "Jerry," called his mother from upstairs, "you come right up here and get that snake off the hall table."
"It's only a little green snake I found when I was cutting the grass," grumbled Jerry. "I was going to catch flies for it. It's a perfectly harmless snake."