“Mean people these,” he muttered; “not a scrap left. Come, don’t be stingy, Mrs. Polly; give me one of your peanuts there. I don’t know when I’ve tasted a peanut,—not since the day Posy left a few and went into the house for a glass of water. She didn’t find many left when she came back, though.”
“Come and get one if you want it,” said Mrs. Polly, eying five freshly roasted peanuts that lay on the bottom of her cage.
Graywhisker watched her shrewdly for an instant, but couldn’t determine from her expressionless countenance whether she really meant what she said.
“It’s easy enough to pick one out,” he said to himself as he began to climb the drapery that hung by the parrot’s cage.
Mrs. Polly watched him as he nimbly pulled himself up, and sat with her head inclined slightly forward, following every motion of his. When opposite the cage, he seized it with one of his forepaws, and with the other tried to fish out a particularly fat peanut; but before he could draw it out Mrs. Polly’s sharp beak pounced down on the paw, and he gave a squeal of pain.
“Did it taste as well as those you stole from Posy?” asked Mrs. Polly.
“You old vixen!” began Graywhisker, “you—”
“Don’t swear,” said Mrs. Polly coolly.
The canary had been a silent spectator all this time, and hardly dared to breathe; but when Mrs. Polly pounced on the old rat’s paw she gave a nervous flutter.
“Oh! I hadn’t noticed you before, my friend,” exclaimed Graywhisker, with his horrible grin; “you’re a very tender morsel, and I’m not a bit afraid of your soft little beak;” and the old villain began to descend the curtain on Mrs. Polly’s side and ascend the one that hung by the canary’s cage.