“What of that?” said I, still injured, though in a lower tone.
“What of that? Ah! You shall see. Look now! This short, stout person with the diamond pin and the expansive shirt front is Giuseppe. Ah, he sees me! Good evening, Giuseppe!”
“Good evening, Monsieur, good evening, good evening! De friend not like de parrot, eh?”
The man was smiling at me with his hands crossed behind him. An Italian Jew I dubbed him immediately.
“On the contrary, he admires it very much,” said De Kock.
Following their eyes presently I saw the cage hanging from the centre of the room, and in it a parrot as nearly pea-green in hue as it is possible for a parrot to be.
“Tell my friend her name, Giuseppe,” said De Kock, beginning on some more asparagus.
Giuseppe stood in his patronizing way—quite the grand seigneur—with the light falling on his solitaire, making it so brilliant that it fascinated and at the same time fatigued my eyes.
“The name of my parrot? Monsieur De Kock, he know that well. It is Félicité—you catch—Fé-li-ci-té. It was the name of my wife.”
Then his wife was dead. De Kock must have made a mistake.