esumption!" cried the
farm-bailiff, and putting on the speckled hat, he added, slowly: "I'm
thinking, John Broom, that if ye're engaged wi' the leddies this morning
it'll be time I turned my hand to singling these few turnips ye've been
thinking about the week past."

On which he departed, and John Broom pressed the little ladies to leave
him alone with the bird.

"We shouldn't like to leave you alone with a wild creature like that,"
said Miss Betty.

"He's just frightened on ye, Miss Betty. He'll be like a lamb when
you're gone," urged John Broom.

"Besides, we should like to see you do it," said Miss Kitty.

"You can look in through the window, miss. I must fasten the door, or
he'll be out."

"I should never forgive myself if he hurt you, John," said Miss Betty,
irresolutely, for she was very anxious to have the cockatoo and perch in
full glory in the parlour.

"He'll none hurt me, miss," said John, with a cheerful smile on his rosy
face. "I likes him, and he'll like me."

This settled the matter. John was left with the cockatoo. He locked the
door, and the little ladies went into the garden and peeped through the
window.

They saw John Broom approach the cage, on which the cockatoo put up his
crest, opened his beak slowly, and snarled, and Miss Betty tapped on the
window and shook her black satin workbag.

"Don't go near him!" she cried. But John Broom paid no attention.

"What are you putting up that top-knot of yours at me for?" said he to
the cockatoo. "Don't ye know your own friends? I'm going to let ye out,
I am. You're going on to your perch, you are."

"Eh, but you're a bonny creature!" he added, as the cockatoo filled the
cage with snow and sulphur flutterings.

"Keep away, keep away!" screamed the little ladies, playing a duet on
the window panes.

"Out with you!" said John Broom, as he unfastened the cage door.

And just when Miss Betty had run round, and as she shouted through the
keyhole, "Open the door, John Broom. We've changed our minds. We've
decided to keep it in its cage," the cockatoo strode solemnly forth on
his eight long toes.

"Pretty Cocky!" said he.

When Miss Betty got back to the window, John Broom had just made an
injudicious grab at the steel chain, on which Pretty Cocky flew fiercely
at him, and John, burying his face in his arms, received the attack on
his thick poll, laughing into his sleeves and holding fast to the chain,
whilst the cockatoo and the little ladie