w her
window." "Sir," said the third dervish, addressing the captain, "shall
I, or shall I not, be an unbeliever?" Quoth the captain: "Come, friend,
come with me into my cabin, and let us cultivate unbelief together!"

* * * * *

A very droll parrot story occurs--where, indeed, we should least expect
to meet with such a thing--in the _Masnavi_ of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi
(13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six
books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In
the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a
fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during
his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a
cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the
parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars
and spilling their contents. When her master returned and saw the havoc
made among his goods he fetched the parrot a blow that knocked out all
her head feathers, and from that day she sulked on her perch. The
oilman, missing the prattle of his favourite, began to shower his alms
on every passing beggar, in hopes that some one would induce the parrot
to speak again. At length a bald-headed mendicant came to the shop one
day, upon seeing whom, the parrot, breaking her long silence, cried out:
"Poor fellow! poor fellow! hast thou, too, upset some oil-jar?"[39]

[39] This tale is found in the early Italian novelists,
slightly varied, and it was doubtless introduced by
Venetian merchants from the Levant: A parrot belonging
to Count Fiesco was discovered one day stealing some
roast meat from the kitchen. The enraged cook,
overtaking him, threw a kettle of boiling water at him,
which completely scalded all the feathers from his head,
and left the poor bird with a bare poll. Some time
afterwards, as Count Fiesco was engaged in conversation
with an abbot, the parrot, observing the shaven crown of
his reverence, hopped up to him and said: "What! do
_you_ like roast meat too?"

In another form the story is orally current in the North
of England. Dr. Fryer tells it to this effect, in his
charming _English Fairy Tales from the North Country_: A
grocer kept a parrot that used to cry out to the
customers that the sugar was