“Oh, yes it would,” said Mrs. Cluffins; “you do as I tell you, and a much smaller house than this would hold him. I told C. to tell Hobson he should have it for five pounds.”
“But he mustn’t,” said her friend in alarm.
“Leave yourself right in my hands,” said Mrs. Cluffins, spreading out two small palms, and regarding them complacently. “It’ll be all right, I promise you.”
She put her arm round her friend’s waist and led her to the window, talking earnestly. In five minutes Mrs. Gannett was wavering, in ten she had given away, and in fifteen the energetic Mrs. Cluffins was en route for Hobson’s, swinging the cage so violently in her excitement that the parrot was reduced to holding on to its perch with claws and bill. Mrs. Gannett watched the progress from the window, and with a queer look on her face sat down to think out the points of attack and defence in the approaching fray.
A week later a four-wheeler drove up to the door, and the engineer, darting upstairs three steps at a time, dropped an armful of parcels on the floor, and caught his wife in an embrace which would have done credit to a bear. Mrs. Gannett, for reasons of which a lack of muscle was only one, responded less ardently.
“Ha, it’s good to be home again,” said Gannett, sinking into an easy-chair and pulling his wife on his knee. “And how have you been? Lonely?”
“I got used to it,” said Mrs. Gannett softly.
The engineer coughed. “You had the parrot,” he remarked.
“Yes, I had the magic parrot,” said Mrs. Gannett.
“How’s it getting on?” said her husband, looking round. “Where is it?”