"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry.
"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay.
"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye! I'll tell!"
My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what they imagined to be the same coveted substance.
Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy.
"Indeed it is excellent——" I began.
"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice.
Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him.
"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago—by a friend," said Aunt Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't—tell anything new, right out!"
All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of preserves! Very well; I preferred that.