ot see much
chance of it.

Then another idea struck me.

'How about Mrs. Wylie?' I said. 'Didn't she explain it at all? You told
her what you had heard, didn't you? Yes, of course, she heard some of it
herself, when we were all three standing at the door of her house.'

'Well,' said Peterkin, 'I was going to tell you the rest. I was
listening to the parrot, and it was much plainer than _you_ heard,
Gilley, for when you were there you only heard him from down below, and
I was up near him--well, I was just standing there listening to him,
when that old lady came up.'

'I know all about that,' I interrupted.

'No, you don't, not nearly all,' Peterkin persisted. He could be as
obstinate as a little pig sometimes, so I said nothing. 'I was just
standing there when she came up. She looked at me, and then she went in
at her own gate, next door to the parrot's, you know, and then she
looked at me again, and spoke over the railings. She said, "Are you
talking to the parrot, my dear?" and I said, "No, I'm only listening to
him, thank you"; and then she looked at me again, and she said, "You
don't live in this terrace, I think?" And I said, "No, I live on the
Esplanade, number 59." Then she pulled out her spectacles--long things,
you know, at the end of a turtle-shell stick.'

'Tortoise-shell,' I corrected.

'Tortoise-shell,' he repeated, 'and then she looked at me again. "If you
live at 59," she said, "I think you must be one of dear Mrs. Lesley's
little sons," and I said, "That's just what I am, thank you." And then
she said, "Won't you come in for a few minutes? You can see the Polly
from my balcony, and it is getting cold for standing about. Are you on
your way home from school?" So I thought it wouldn't be polite not to go
in. She was so kind, you see,' and here his voice grew 'cryey' again, 'I
never thought about mamma being flightened, and I only meant to stay a
min----'

'Shut up about all that,' I interrupted. 'We've had it often enough, and
I want to hear what happened.'

'Well,' he said, quite briskly again, 'she took me in, and up to her
drawing-room. The window was a tiny bit open, and she made me stand just
on the ledge between it and the balcony, so that I could see the parrot
without his seeing me, for she said if he saw me he'd set up screeching
and not talk sense any more. He knows when people are strangers. The
cage was close to the old lady's end of the balcony, so that I could
almost have touched i