s screamed against each other.

"It'll break your leg--you'll tear its eyes out!" cried Miss Kitty.

"Miss Kitty means that you'll break its leg, and it will tear your eyes
out," Miss Betty explained through the glass. "John Broom! Come away!
Lock it in! Let it go!"

But Cocky was now waddling solemnly round the room, and John Broom was
creeping after him, with the end of the chain in one hand, and the perch
in the other, and in a moment more he had joined the chain and the ring,
and just as Miss Betty was about to send for the constable and have the
door broken open, Cocky--driven into a corner--clutched his perch and
was raised triumphantly to his place in the bow-window.

He was now a parlour pet, and John Broom saw little of him. This vexed
him, for he had taken a passionate liking for the bird. The little
ladies rewarded him well for his skill, but this brought him no favour
from the farm-bailiff, and matters went on as ill as before.

One day the cockatoo got his chain entangled, and Miss Kitty promptly
advanced to put it right. She had unfastened that end which secured it
to the perch, when Cocky, who had been watching the proceeding with much
interest, dabbed at her with his beak. Miss Kitty fled, but with great
presence of mind shut the door after her. She forgot, however, that the
window was open, in front of which stood the cockatoo scanning the
summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze.

And just as the little ladies ran into the garden, and Miss Kitty was
saying, "One comfort is, sister Betty, that it's quite safe in the room,
till we can think what to do next," he bowed his yellow crest, spread
his noble wings, and sailed out into the aether.

In ten minutes the whole able-bodied population of the place was in the
grounds of Lingborough, including the farm-bailiff.

The cockatoo was on the top of a fir-tree, and a fragment of the chain
was with him, for he had broken it, and below on the lawn stood the
little ladies, who, with the unfailing courage of women in a hopeless
cause, were trying to dislodge him by waving their pocket-handkerchiefs
and crying "sh!"

He looked composedly down out of one eye for some time, and then he
began to move.

"I think it's coming down now," said Miss Kitty.

But in a quarter of a minute, Cocky had sailed a quarter of a mile, and
was rocking himself on the top of an old willow-tree. And at this moment
John Broom joined the crowd which fo