The Chief Engineer and the Third sat at tea on the s.s. _Curlew_ in the
East India Docks. The small and not over-clean steward having placed
everything he could think of upon the table, and then added everything
the Chief could think of, had assiduously poured out two cups of tea
and withdrawn by request. The two men ate steadily, conversing between
bites, and interrupted occasionally by a hoarse and sepulchral voice,
the owner of which, being much exercised by the sight of the food,
asked for it, prettily at first, and afterwards in a way which at least
compelled attention.
“That’s pretty good for a parrot,” said the Third critically. “Seems to
know what he’s saying too. No, don’t give it anything. It’ll stop if
you do.”
“There’s no pleasure to _me_ in listening to coarse language,” said the
Chief with dignity.
He absently dipped a piece of bread and butter in the Third’s tea, and
losing it chased it round and round the bottom of the cup with his
finger, the Third regarding the operation with an interest and emotion
which he was at first unable to understand.
“You’d better pour yourself out another cup,” he said thoughtfully as
he caught the Third’s eye.
“I’m going to,” said the other dryly.
“The man I bought it off,” said the Chief, giving the bird the sop,
“said that it was a perfectly respectable parrot and wouldn’t know a
bad word if it heard it. I hardly like to give it to my wife now.”
“It’s no good being too particular,” said the Third, regarding him with
an ill-concealed grin; “that’s the worst of all you young married
fellows. Seem to think your wife has got to be wrapped up in brown
paper. Ten chances to one she’ll be amused.”
The Chief shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. “I bought the bird to be
company for her,” he said slowly; “she’ll be very lonesome without me,
Rogers.”
“How do you know?” inquired the other.
“She said so,” was the reply.
“When you’ve been married as long as I have,” said the Third, who
having been married some fifteen years felt that their usual positions
were somewhat reversed, “you’ll know that generally speaking they’re
glad to get rid of you.”
“What for?” demanded the Chief in a voice that Othello might have
envied.
“Well, you get in the way a bit,” said Rogers with secret enjoyment;
“you see you upset the arrangements. House-cleaning and all that sort
of thing gets interrupted. They’re glad to see you back at first, and
then glad to see the back of you.”
“There’s wives and wives,” said the bridegroom tenderly.
“And mine’s a good one,” said the Third, “registered A1 at Lloyd’s, but
she don’t worry about me going away. Your wife’s thirty years younger
than you, isn’t she?”
“Twenty-five,” corrected the other shortly. “You see what I’m afraid of
is, that she’ll get too much attention.”
“Well, women like that,” remarked the Third.
“But I don’t, damn it,” cried the Chief hotly. “When I think of it I
get hot all over. Boiling hot.”
“That won’t last,” said the other reassuringly; “you won’t care
twopence this time next year.”
“We’re not all alike,” growled the Chief; “some of us have got finer
feelings than others have. I saw the chap next door looking at her as
we passed him this morning.”
“Lor’,” said the Third.
“I don’t want any of your damned impudence,” said the Chief sharply.
“He put his hat on straighter when he passed us. What do you think of
that?”
“Can’t say,” replied the other with commendable gravity; “it might mean
anything.”
“If he has any of his nonsense while I’m away I’ll break his neck,”
said the Chief passionately. “I shall know of it.”
The other raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve asked the landlady to keep her eyes open a bit,” said the Chief.
“My wife was brought up in the country, and she’s very young and
simple, so that it is quite right and proper for her to have a motherly
old body to look after her.”
“Told your wife?” queried Rogers.
“No,” said the other. “Fact is, I’ve got an idea about that parrot. I’m
going to tell her it’s a magic bird, and will tell me everything she
does while I’m away. Anything the landlady tells me I shall tell her I
got from the parrot. For one thing, I don’t want her to go out after
seven of an evening, and she’s promised me she won’t. If she does I
shall know, and pretend that I know through the parrot. What do you
think of it?”
“Think of it?” said the Third, staring at him. “Think of it? Fancy a
man telling a grown-up woman a yarn like that!”
“She believes in warnings and death-watches, and all that sort of
thing,” said the Chief, “so why shouldn’t she?”
“Well, you’ll know whether she believes in it or not when you come
back,” said Rogers, “and it’ll be a great pity, because it’s a
beautiful talker.”
“What do you mean?” said the other.
“I mean it’ll get its little neck wrung,” said the Third.
“Well, we’ll see,” said Gannett. “I shall know what to think if it does
die.”
“I shall never see that bird again,” said Rogers, shaking his head as
the Chief took up the cage and handed it to the steward, who was to
accompany him home with it.
The couple left the ship and proceeded down the East India Dock Road
side by side, the only incident being a hot argument between a
constable and the engineer as to whether he could or could not be held
responsible for the language in which the parrot saw fit to indulge
when the steward happened to drop it.
The engineer took the cage at his door, and, not without some
misgivings, took it upstairs into the parlour and set it on the table.
Mrs. Gannett, a simple-looking woman, with sleepy brown eyes and a
docile manner, clapped her hands with joy.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” said Mr. Gannett, looking at it; “I bought it to
be company for you while I’m away.”
“You’re too good to me, Jem,” said his wife. She walked all round the
cage admiring it, the parrot, which was of a highly suspicious and
nervous disposition, having had boys at its last place, turning with
her. After she had walked round him five times he got sick of it, and
in a simple sailorly fashion said so.
“Oh, Jem,” said his wife.
“It’s a beautiful talker,” said Gannett hastily, “and it’s so clever
that it picks up everything it hears, but it’ll soon forget it.”
“It looks as though it knows what you are saying,” said his wife. “Just
look at it, the artful thing.”
The opportunity was too good to be missed, and in a few straightforward
lies the engineer acquainted Mrs. Gannett of the miraculous powers with
which he had chosen to endow it.
“But you don’t believe it?” said his wife, staring at him open-mouthed.
“I do,” said the engineer firmly.
“But how can it know what I’m doing when I’m away?” persisted Mrs.
Gannett.
“Ah, that’s its secret,” said the engineer; “a good many people would
like to know that, but nobody has found out yet. It’s a magic bird, and
when you’ve said that you’ve said all there is to say about it.”
Mrs. Gannett, wrinkling her forehead, eyed the marvellous bird
curiously.
“You’ll find it’s quite true,” said Gannett; “when I come back that
bird’ll be able to tell me how you’ve been and all about you.
Everything you’ve done during my absence.”
“Good gracious!” said the astonished Mrs. Gannett.
“If you stay out after seven of an evening, or do anything else that I
shouldn’t like, that bird’ll tell me,” continued the engineer
impressively. “It’ll tell me who comes to see you, and in fact it will
tell me everything you do while I’m away.”
“Well, it won’t have anything bad to tell of me,” said Mrs. Gannett
composedly, “unless it tells lies.”
“It can’t tell lies,” said her husband confidently, “and now, if you go
and put your bonnet on, we’ll drop in at the theatre for half an hour.”
It was a prophetic utterance, for he made such a fuss over the man next
to his wife offering her his opera-glasses, that they left, at the
urgent request of the management, in almost exactly that space of time.
“You’d better carry me about in a bandbox,” said Mrs. Gannett wearily
as the outraged engineer stalked home beside her. “What harm was the
man doing?”
“You must have given him some encouragement,” said Mr. Gannett
fiercely—“made eyes at him or something. A man wouldn’t offer to lend a
lady his opera-glasses without.”
Mrs. Gannett tossed her head—and that so decidedly, that a passing
stranger turned his head and looked at her. Mr. Gannett accelerated his
pace, and taking his wife’s arm, led her swiftly home with a passion
too great for words.
By the morning his anger had evaporated, but his misgivings remained.
He left after breakfast for the _Curlew_, which was to sail in the
afternoon, leaving behind him copious instructions, by following which
his wife would be enabled to come down and see him off with the minimum
exposure of her fatal charms.
Left to herself Mrs. Gannett dusted the room, until, coming to the
parrot’s cage, she put down the duster and eyed its eerie occupant
curiously. She fancied that she saw an evil glitter in the creature’s
eye, and the knowing way in which it drew the film over it was as near
an approach to a wink as a bird could get.
She was still looking at it when there was a knock at the door, and a
bright little woman—rather smartly dressed—bustled into the room, and
greeted her effusively.
“I just came to see you, my dear, because I thought a little outing
would do me good,” she said briskly; “and if you’ve no objection I’ll
come down to the docks with you to see the boat off.”
Mrs. Gannett assented readily. It would ease the engineer’s mind, she
thought, if he saw her with a chaperon.
“Nice bird,” said Mrs. Cluffins, mechanically bringing her parasol to
the charge.
“Don’t do that,” said her friend hastily.
“Why not?” said the other.
“Language!” said Mrs. Gannett solemnly.
“Well, I must do something to it,” said Mrs. Cluffins restlessly.
She held the parasol near the cage and suddenly opened it. It was a
flaming scarlet, and for the moment the shock took the parrot’s breath
away.
“He don’t mind that,” said Mrs. Gannett.
The parrot, hopping to the farthest corner of the bottom of his cage,
said something feebly. Finding that nothing dreadful happened, he
repeated his remark somewhat more boldly, and, being convinced after
all that the apparition was quite harmless and that he had displayed
his craven spirit for nothing, hopped back on his perch and raved
wickedly.
“If that was my bird,” said Mrs. Cluffins, almost as scarlet as her
parasol, “I should wring its neck.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Gannett solemnly. And having quieted the
bird by throwing a cloth over its cage, she explained its properties.
“What!” said Mrs. Cluffins, unable to sit still in her chair. “You mean
to tell me your husband said that!”
Mrs. Gannett nodded.
“He’s awfully jealous of me,” she said with a slight simper.
“I wish he was my husband,” said Mrs. Cluffins in a thin, hard voice.
“I wish C. would talk to _me_ like that. I wish somebody would try and
persuade C. to talk to me like that.”
“It shows he’s fond of me,” said Mrs. Gannett, looking down.
Mrs. Cluffins jumped up, and snatching the cover off the cage,
endeavoured, but in vain, to get the parasol through the bars.
“And you believe that rubbish!” she said scathingly. “Boo, you wretch!”
“I don’t believe it,” said her friend, taking her gently away and
covering the cage hastily just as the bird was recovering, “but I let
him think I do.”
“I call it an outrage,” said Mrs. Cluffins, waving the parasol wildly.
“I never heard of such a thing; I’d like to give Mr. Gannett a piece of
my mind. Just about half an hour of it. He wouldn’t be the same man
afterwards—I’d parrot him.”
Mrs. Gannett, soothing her agitated friend as well as she was able, led
her gently to a chair and removed her bonnet, and finding that complete
recovery was impossible while the parrot remained in the room, took
that wonder-working bird outside.
By the time they had reached the docks and boarded the _Curlew_ Mrs.
Cluffins had quite recovered her spirits. She roamed about the steamer
asking questions, which savoured more of idle curiosity than a genuine
thirst for knowledge, and was at no pains to conceal her opinion of
those who were unable to furnish her with satisfactory replies.
“I shall think of you every day, Jem,” said Mrs. Gannett tenderly.
“I shall think of you every minute,” said the engineer reproachfully.
He sighed gently and gazed in a scandalised fashion at Mrs. Cluffins,
who was carrying on a desperate flirtation with one of the apprentices.
“She’s very light-hearted,” said his wife, following the direction of
his eyes.
“She is,” said Mr. Gannett curtly, as the unconscious Mrs. Cluffins
shut her parasol and rapped the apprentice playfully with the handle.
“She seems to be on very good terms with Jenkins, laughing and carrying
on. I don’t suppose she’s ever seen him before.”
“Poor young things,” said Mrs. Cluffins solemnly, as she came up to
them. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Gannett; I’ll look after her and keep her
from moping.”
“You’re very kind,” said the engineer slowly.
“We’ll have a jolly time,” said Mrs. Cluffins. “I often wish my husband
was a seafaring man. A wife does have more freedom, doesn’t she?”
“More what?” inquired Mr. Gannett huskily.
“More freedom,” said Mrs. Cluffins gravely. “I always envy sailors’
wives. They can do as they like. No husband to look after them for nine
or ten months in the year.”
Before the unhappy engineer could put his indignant thoughts into words
there was a warning cry from the gangway, and with a hasty farewell he
hurried below. The visitors went ashore, the gangway was shipped, and
in response to the clang of the telegraph the _Curlew_ drifted slowly
away from the quay and headed for the swing-bridge slowly opening in
front of her.
The two ladies hurried to the pier-head and watched the steamer down
the river until a bend hid it from view. Then Mrs. Gannett, with a
sensation of having lost something, due, so her friend assured her, to
the want of a cup of tea, went slowly back to her lonely home.
In the period of grass-widowhood which ensued, Mrs. Cluffins’s visits
formed almost the sole relief to the bare monotony of existence. As a
companion the parrot was an utter failure, its language being so
irredeemably bad that it spent most of its time in the spare room with
a cloth over its cage, wondering when the days were going to lengthen a
bit. Mrs. Cluffins suggested selling it, but her friend repelled the
suggestion with horror, and refused to entertain it at any price, even
that of the publican at the corner, who, having heard of the bird’s
command of language, was bent upon buying it.
“I wonder what that beauty will have to tell your husband,” said Mrs.
Cluffins, as they sat together one day some three months after the
_Curlew’s_ departure.
“I should hope that he has forgotten that nonsense,” said Mrs. Gannett,
reddening; “he never alludes to it in his letters.”
“Sell it,” said Mrs. Cluffins peremptorily. “It’s no good to you, and
Hobson would give anything for it almost.”
Mrs. Gannett shook her head. “The house wouldn’t hold my husband if I
did,” she remarked with a shiver.
“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 way, 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 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?”
“Part of it is on the mantelpiece,” said Mrs. Gannett, trying to speak
calmly, “part of it is in a bonnet-box upstairs, some of it’s in my
pocket, and here is the remainder.”
She fumbled in her pocket and placed in his hand a cheap two-bladed
clasp knife.
“On the mantelpiece!” repeated the engineer staring at the knife; “in a
bonnet-box!” “Those blue vases,” said his wife. Mr. Gannett put his
hand to his head. If he had heard aright one parrot had changed into a
pair of vases, a bonnet, and a knife. A magic bird with a vengeance.
“I sold it,” said Mrs. Gannett suddenly.
The engineer’s knee stiffened inhospitably, and his arm dropped from
his wife’s waist. She rose quietly and took a chair opposite.
“Sold it!” said Mr. Gannett in awful tones. “Sold my parrot!”
“I didn’t like it, Jem,” said his wife. “I didn’t want that bird
watching me, and I did want the vases, and the bonnet, and the little
present for you.”
Mr. Gannett pitched the little present to the other end of the room.
“You see it mightn’t have told the truth, Jem,” continued Mrs. Gannett.
“It might have told all sorts of lies about me, and made no end of
mischief.”
“It couldn’t lie,” shouted the engineer passionately, rising from his
chair and pacing the room. “It’s your guilty conscience that’s made a
coward of you. How dare you sell my parrot?”
“Because it wasn’t truthful, Jem,” said his wife, who was somewhat
pale.
“If you were half as truthful you’d do,” vociferated the engineer,
standing over her. “You, you deceitful woman.”
Mrs. Gannett fumbled in her pocket again, and producing a small
handkerchief applied it delicately to her eyes.
“I—I got rid of it for your sake,” she stammered. “It used to tell such
lies about you. I couldn’t bear to listen to it.”
“About _me!_” said Mr. Gannett, sinking into his seat and staring at
his wife with very natural amazement. “Tell lies about _me!_ Nonsense!
How could it?”
“I suppose it could tell me about you as easily as it could tell you
about me?” said Mrs. Gannett. “There was more magic in that bird than
you thought, Jem. It used to say shocking things about you. I couldn’t
bear it.”
“Do you think you’re talking to a child or a fool?” demanded the
engineer.
Mrs. Gannett shook her head feebly. She still kept the handkerchief to
her eyes, but allowed a portion to drop over her mouth.
“I should like to hear some of the stories it told about me—if you can
remember them,” said the engineer with bitter sarcasm.
“The first lie,” said Mrs. Gannett in a feeble but ready voice, “was
about the time you were at Genoa. The parrot said you were at some
concert gardens at the upper end of the town.”
One moist eye coming mildly from behind the handkerchief saw the
engineer stiffen suddenly in his chair.
“I don’t suppose there even is such a place,” she continued.
“I—b’leve—there—is,” said her husband jerkily. “I’ve heard—our
chaps—talk of it.”
“But you haven’t been there?” said his wife anxiously.
“_Never!_” said the engineer with extraordinary vehemence.
“That wicked bird said that you got intoxicated there,” said Mrs.
Gannett in solemn accents, “that you smashed a little marble-topped
table and knocked down two waiters, and that if it hadn’t been for the
captain of the _Pursuit_, who was in there and who got you away, you’d
have been locked up. Wasn’t it a wicked bird?”
“Horrible!” said the engineer huskily.
“I don’t suppose there ever was a ship called the _Pursuit_,” continued
Mrs. Gannett.
“Doesn’t sound like a ship’s name,” murmured Mr. Gannett.
“Well, then, a few days later it said the _Curlew_ was at Naples.”
“I never went ashore all the time we were at Naples,” remarked the
engineer casually.
“The parrot said you did,” said Mrs. Gannett.
“I suppose you’ll believe your own lawful husband before that damned
bird?” shouted Gannett, starting up.
“Of course I didn’t believe it, Jem,” said his wife. “I’m trying to
prove to you that the bird was not truthful, but you’re so hard to
persuade.”
Mr. Gannett took a pipe from his pocket, and with a small knife dug
with much severity and determination a hardened plug from the bowl, and
blew noisily through the stem.
“There was a girl kept a fruit-stall just by the harbour,” said Mrs.
Gannett, “and on this evening, on the strength of having bought
three-pennyworth of green figs, you put your arm round her waist and
tried to kiss her, and her sweetheart, who was standing close by, tried
to stab you. The parrot said that you were in such a state of terror
that you jumped into the harbour and were nearly drowned.”
Mr. Gannett having loaded his pipe lit it slowly and carefully, and
with tidy precision got up and deposited the match in the fireplace.
“It used to frighten me so with its stories that I hardly knew what to
do with myself,” continued Mrs. Gannett. “When you were at Suez—”
The engineer waved his hand imperiously.
“That’s enough,” he said stiffly.
“I’m sure I don’t want to have to repeat what it told me about Suez,”
said his wife. “I thought you’d like to hear it, that’s all.”
“Not at all,” said the engineer, puffing at his pipe. “Not at all.”
“But you see why I got rid of the bird, don’t you?” said Mrs. Gannett.
“If it had told you untruths about me, _you_ would have believed them,
wouldn’t you?”
Mr. Gannett took his pipe from his mouth and took his wife in his
extended arms. “No, my dear,” he said brokenly, “no more than you
believe all this stuff about me.”
“And I did quite right to sell it, didn’t I, Jem?”
“Quite right,” said Mr. Gannett with a great assumption of heartiness.
“Best thing to do with it.”
“You haven’t heard the worst yet,” said Mrs. Gannett. “When you were at
Suez—”
Mr. Gannett consigned Suez to its only rival, and thumping the table
with his clenched fist, forbade his wife to mention the word again, and
desired her to prepare supper.
Not until he heard his wife moving about in the kitchen below did he
relax the severity of his countenance. Then his expression changed to
one of extreme anxiety, and he restlessly paced the room seeking for
light. It came suddenly.
“Jenkins,” he gasped, “Jenkins and Mrs. Cluffins, and I was going to
tell Cluffins about him writing to his wife. I expect he knows the
letter by heart.”