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 t