“Hold on, Riley, what are you talking about?” growled Bland. “Kicked by a poll parrot! You’re––”
“That’s all right, Chief,” broke in the now thoroughly cheerful Perry. “That jackass I shot could probably have told us all about it. I positively know the beast could talk.”
“Humph!” snorted Bland, “Well, if a donkey can talk, and a bull can bite, and a hound can hook, why shouldn’t a parrot––Judas Priest, I’m getting as crazy as the rest of you! Hurry up and get Kell downstairs so we can see 374 who he is. There I go again! Oh, go lie down, Riley.”
“But look, Bland, look!” Riley was pointing a demoralized finger at a cage in the corner. He tugged frantically at Bland’s coat sleeve. “See what’s in there, won’t you? I––well, I did find some liquor in your car, and Miss Manion made me take some. I––I didn’t know it would do this to me. Look in there; please, Mr. Bland!”
Bland gave Riley a dark look, but nevertheless he reached for O’Hara’s flashlight. In the cage two yellow eyes blinked sleepily out at him. Perry began to laugh.
“Why, there’s nothing in there but a cat. Skip and I heard it purring when we first came in here this afternoon. Guess Riley––”
“Great God, Jimmie, give me your gun!” Hard Boiled Bland for the moment failed to merit his sobriquet. The torch in his hand threw a trembling beam full into the cage. “It’s a snake! And––there! It’s doing it again!”
A snake it was, indubitably, a huge black specimen with bright yellow stripes. Bland’s frenzied yell seemed not to have excited it at all, for now the sleek fellow had arched its body neatly and was calmly licking its sides with a long forked tongue. After a moment it halted the operation long enough to rub its jaw against a bar of its cage, and gave vent to a sociable mew!
Even this could not dash the spirits of Horace Perry. He laughed delightedly again as he laid Bland by the arm.