“I would much rather you would buy me a pocket-handkerchief. Here we are, shut up, without a chance of getting out, and with nobody to pity us; and we can’t even have the comfort of crying, because we’ve got nothing to wipe our eyes with.”
“But at least,” replied the woman, “you CAN cry now if you please, and when you had your other face you could not.”
“Buy me a handkerchief,” sobbed the parrot.
“I can’t afford both,” whined the cross woman, “and I’ve paid now for the maize.” So saying, she went back to the tent to fetch her present to the parrots, and as their cage was still swinging Jack put out his hand to steady it for them, and the instant he did so they became perfectly silent, and all the other parrots on that tree, who had been flinging themselves about in their cages, left off screaming and became silent too.
The old parrot looked very cunning. His cage hung by such a long gold chain that it was just on a level with Jack’s face, and so many odd things had happened that day that it did not seem more odd than usual to hear him say, in a tone of great astonishment:
“It’s a BOY, if ever there was one!”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I’m a boy.”
“You won’t go yet, will you?” said the parrot.
“No, don’t,” said a great many other parrots. Jack agreed to stay a little while, upon which they all thanked him.
“I had no notion you were a boy till you touched my cage,” said the old parrot.