ve set your cage swinging with knocking yourself about; and what
good does that do? I cannot break the spell and open it for you."

"I know that," answered the parrot, sobbing; "but it hurts my feelings
so that you should take no notice of me now that I have come down in
the world."

"Yes," said the parrot's mate, "it hurts our feelings."

"I haven't forgotten you," answered the woman, more crossly than ever;
"I was buying a measure of maize for you when you began to make such a
noise."

Jack thought this was the queerest conversation he had ever heard in
his life; and he was still more surprised when the bird answered,--

"I would much rather you would buy me a pocket-handkerchief. Here we
are, shut up, without a chance of getting out, and with nobody to pity
us; and we can't even have the comfort of crying, because we've got
nothing to wipe our eyes with."

"But at least," replied the woman, "you CAN cry now if you please, and
when you had your other face you could not."

"Buy me a handkerchief," sobbed the parrot.

"I can't afford both," whined the cross woman, "and I've paid now for
the maize." So saying, she went back to the tent to fetch her present
to the parrots; and as their cage was still swinging Jack put out his
hand to steady it for them, and the instant he did so they became
perfectly silent, and all the other parrots on that tree, who had been
flinging themselves about in their cages, left off screaming, and
became silent too.

The old parrot looked very cunning. His cage hung by such a long gold
chain that it was just on a level with Jack's face, and so many odd
things had happened that day that it did not seem more odd than usual
to hear him say, in a tone of great astonishment,--

"It's a BOY, if ever there was one!"

"Yes," said Jack; "I'm a boy."

"You won't go yet, will you?" said the parrot.

"No, don't," said a great many other parrots. Jack agreed to stay a
little while, upon which they all thanked him.

"I had no notion you were a boy till you touched my cage," said the
old parrot.

Jack did not know how this could have told him, so he only answered,
"Indeed!"

"I'm a fairy," observed the parrot, in a confidential tone. "We are
imprisoned here by our enemies the gypsies."

"So we are," answered a chorus of other parrots.

"I'm sorry for that," replied Jack. "I'm friends with the fairies."

"Don't tell," said the parrot, drawing a film over his eyes, and
pretending to be