them.

Jack put me up on the table to look at the parrot. The boy held her by a
string tied around one of her legs. She was a gray parrot with a few red
feathers in her tail, and she had bright eyes, and a very knowing air.

The boy said he had been careful to buy a young one that could not
speak, for he knew the Morris boys would not want one chattering foreign
gibberish, nor yet one that would swear. He had kept her in his bunk in
the ship, and had spent all his leisure time in teaching her to talk.
Then he looked at her anxiously, and said, "Show off now, can't ye?"

I didn't know what he meant by all this, until afterward. I had never
heard of such a thing as birds talking. I stood on the table staring
hard at her, and she stared hard at me. I was just thinking that I would
not like to have her sharp little beak fastened in my skin, when I heard
some one say, "Beautiful Joe." The voice seemed to come from the room,
but I knew all the voices there, and this was one I had never heard
before, so I thought I must be mistaken, and it was some one in the
hall. I struggled to get away from Jack to run and see who it was. But
he held me fast, and laughed with all his might. I looked at the other
boys and they were laughing, too. Presently, I heard again, "Beautiful
Joe, Beautiful Joe." The sound was close by, and yet it did not come
from the cabin boy, for he was all doubled up laughing, his face as red
as a beet.

"It's the parrot, Joe!" cried Ned. "Look at her, you gaby." I did look
at her, and with her head on one side, and the sauciest air in the
world, she was saying: "Beau-ti-ful Joe, Beau-ti-ful Joe!"

I had never heard a bird talk before, and I felt so sheepish that I
tried to get down and hide myself under the table. Then she began to
laugh at me. "Ha, ha, ha, good dog sic 'em, boy. Rats, rats! Beau-ti-ful
Joe, Beau-ti-ful Joe," she cried, rattling off the words as fast as she
could.

I never felt so queer before in my life, and the boys were just roaring
with delight at my puzzled face. Then the parrot began calling for Jim.
"Where's Jim, where's good old Jim? Poor old dog. Give him a bone."

The boys brought Jim in the parlor, and when he heard her funny, little,
cracked voice calling him, he nearly went crazy: "Jimmy, Jimmy, James
Augustus!" she said, which was Jim's long name.

He made a dash out of the room, and the boys screamed so that Mr. Morris
came down from his study to see what the noise meant.