'How do you mean? Is he making up fairy stories about it?'
'Perhaps! You see he had never heard a parrot speaking. I'm not sure if he knew they ever did. But he wanted very much to see it again, and it just came into my mind all at once, that if he had a chance he might have run round there and lost his way. I don't suppose he meant to when mamma told him to go home. It may just have struck him when he got to the corner of Lindsay Square.'
I did not answer. We were walking so fast that it was not easy to go on speaking. But I did think it was very clever of Clement to have thought of it. It was so like Peterkin.
Clement hurried on. It was quite dark by now, but the lamps were lighted, and Clem seemed quite sure of his way. In spite of feeling rather unhappy about Peterkin, I was enjoying myself a little. I did not think it possible that he was really badly lost, and it was very exciting to rush along the streets after dark like this, and then I could not help fancying how triumphant we should feel if we actually found him.
It was not very surprising that I did not know where Rock Terrace was, or that I had never even heard of it. It was such a tiny little row of such tiny houses, opening out of one corner of Lindsay Square. The houses were rather pretty; at least, very neat-looking and old-fashioned, with a little bit of garden in front, and small iron gates. They looked as if old maids lived in them, and I daresay there were a good many.
Clement hurried along till he was close to the farther off end. Then he stopped short, and for the first time seemed at a loss.
'I don't know the number,' he said, 'but I'm sure it was almost the end house. And—yes—isn't that a big cage on the little balcony, Giles? Look well.'
I peeped up. The light of the lamps was not very good in Rock Terrace.
'Yes,' I said. 'It is a big cage, but I can't see if there's a bird in it.'
'Perhaps they take him in at night,' said Clement. Then he looked up again at the balconies.