everal
frantic efforts to support himself, fell to the ground with a dull thud.

"What are you up to, I say?" said the voice again, and the children
could see that the parrot, who had been so insolent to them before, was
sitting on one of the branches near them.

"Pretty objects you are making of yourselves, I must say," he remarked,
sneeringly. "What do you think you are doing, I should like to know?"

"I don't see what it has to do with you," said Dick, crossly, while the
Dodo, with his eyes shut and his head on one side, ran about rubbing his
back with one pinion, and crying, "Oh! oh! oh!" for he had evidently
hurt himself very much.

"You don't, do you?" said the parrot. "Well, then, it has a great deal
to do with me. Trying to fly, weren't you? Well, you are not birds, and
it isn't allowed; do you hear? The idea of mere human creatures aping
their betters in that way. Flying, indeed! Don't you let me catch you at
it again, or you will be sorry for it, I can tell you. Now move on, and
walk on your feet in a sensible way, like rational human beings. Go
along! What next, I wonder!"

He was evidently so very angry that the children thought it best not to
provoke him further, so, leading the Dodo, who hobbled along painfully,
they walked silently away in the direction of the sea, while the parrot
watched them with a severe expression, screaming out--"Move on! move
on!" every time they stopped.

"What a disagreeable bird," whispered Marjorie, when they had gone some
little distance.

"Wretch!" declared the Dodo, rubbing his back.

"For two pins I'd wring his neck," muttered Dick, angrily.

"Much obliged, I'm sure," said a mocking voice overhead, and there was
that wretched parrot, looking down from one of the upper branches.

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves," remarked the Dodo.

"Pooh!--as though I cared what _you_ thought about me," said the parrot.
"Why, if I liked, I could--oh!" he cried, looking off to the left, "the
Skipper," and, spreading his wings, he flew rapidly away with every sign
of alarm.

The children followed his glance, and saw coming towards them a very
stout, very jolly-looking sailor, with a red, hearty face and a jovial
smile. To their great surprise, they saw that he was using a
skipping-rope, and skipping towards them, smiling good-naturedly.

"Thank goodness, here's a man at last," said Dick. "Now we shall be
able to find out something as to where we are, and how we are