"Who is this Anna?" I asked him soon's I got my breath.
"Oh, a Swede girl—I know her a long time," he says foolishly. "Used to entertain me in the basement when I was on the regular force. She's some cook! You're lucky to have her."
And just then this ex-pro-German Bolshevist cook we was so lucky to have starts to yell again!
"Frits! Oy! Frits!" she says. "He bane gone! Make un yoump back!"
And sure enough, there was Frits on the fire-escape of the flat next to us. He had give one hop and a flutter and got across, where he sat, silent for once in his life and giving us the evil-eye.
"Yoump back," says the cook in passionate entriety. "Yoump back to your Aniky that you love! All day you yell you love may an' now you leave may!"
And as she said them words still another weight was lifted from my shoulders, although not from hers, for instead of jumping back, that radical bird which it seemed was not a radical after all and acting like the most conventional parrot in the world, commenced to climb up the fire-escape of the other apartment house, like he was leaving us forever.
"Yoump!" implored Anna, but he just climbed, instead.
"Here, wait, and I'll get him!" says Mike. "Glad to do it, Anna. I can step across easy enough!"
Anna held his coat, and he swung hisself over to the other side almost as neat as a picture-actor, and commenced following that mean-hearted bird up and up, story after story, until that animal led him in at a open window about three flats above. We waited in silence and, believe you me, I had about commenced to believe that bird and he was never coming out again, when down comes Mike, the bird tucked into his vest, his face simply purple with excitement. I never seen any acrobat work swifter or quieter than he did. He landed on the kitchen floor and closed the window behind him before he even give Anna her bird.