"There, you see!" he ejaculated.
"It's certainly very odd," said the Father. "Very odd indeed. You are certain you have no maid who talks at all like that?"
"My dear Murchison! Would you keep a servant with such a voice about you for two days?"
"No."
"My housemaid has been with me for five years, my cook for seven. You've heard Pitting speak. The three of them make up my entire household. A parrot never speaks in a voice it has not heard. Where has it heard that voice?"
"But we hear nothing?"
"No. Nor do we see anything. But it does. It feels something too. Didn't you observe it presenting its head to be scratched?"
"Certainly it seemed to be doing so."
"It was doing so."
Father Murchison said nothing. He was full of increasing discomfort that almost amounted to apprehension.