"Are you a good American?" says Ma.
"Good American-Swedish," says Anna. And immediately that awful laugh was repeated. This time it was in the room, no doubt about it. And yet no one was there outside ourselfs.
"My Gawd!" says Ma. "What was it?"
"Somebody is hid some place!" I says. "And I'd like to know who is it with the cheap sense of humor?"
"It bane Frits," says Anna. "Na, na, Frits!"
"But where on earth . . ." I was commencing, when I noticed Anna was unwinding the shawl off the package in her lap. And then in another moment we seen Frits for our own selves, for there he was, a big moth-eaten parrot, interned in a cage, making wicked eyes at us and giving us the ha-ha like the true Hun he was!
"Frits and me, we stay!" announced Anna comfortably. "We stay!"
"But look here," says I, "we didn't start out to hire any parrots."
"Why Mary Gilligan!" says Ma, and I could see she was scared that if Frits went Anna would certainly go, too. "Why Mary Gilligan, I thought you was fond of dumb animals!" she says.
"And so I am," I says. "The dumber the better. But this one is evidently far from it! How am I going to figure out my income tax with this bird hanging around?"