Crowded Out! and Other Sketches. S. Frances Harrison
needed to look once upon the ghastly pallor, the ugly lip mark and the long slender figure on the bed before me to recognize her who had once been Mdme. Martinetti.
“And now for the paper,” I said.
“It will be in the room that was hers, if monsieur will accompany.” We walked along several corridors till we reached the room in which hung the parrot, I quite expected it to fly at me again and try to get rid of its miserable secret But no! It sat on its stick, perfectly quiet and rational.
“I cannot find dat paper, it is very strange!” muttered the good sister, turning everything over and over. A light wind playing about the room had perhaps blown it into some corner. I assisted her in the search.
“It surely was in an envelope?” I said to the innocent woman.
“Yes monsieur, yes, and with a seal, for I got the cire—you call it wax—myself and held it for her, la bonne soeur.”
“It is not always wise to leave such letters about,” I put in as meekly as I could “Where was it you saw it last?”
“On dees little table, monsieur.”
Now, “dees little table” was between the two windows, and not far, consequently from the parrot's cage. My eye travelled from the table to the cage as a matter of necessity, and I saw that the bottom of it was strewn with something white—like very, very tiny scraps of paper. “I think you need not look any further,” said I. “Polly, you either are very clever, or else you are a lunatic and a fool. Which is it?”
But I never found out The parrot had got the letter by some means or other and so effectually torn, bitten and made away with it that nothing remained of it for identification except the wax, which it did not touch and left absolutely whole. The secret which had been the parrot's all along belonged to the parrot still, and after having devoured it in that fashion it became satisfied, and never—at least, as far as I am aware—reverted morbidly to the comic refrain which has but one significance for me.
I took the bird and kept it. I have it now with me. It has been examined hundreds of times; for a long time I was anxious to know the secret of its changed color, but I have never deciphered it. It is healthy, in good condition, sweet-tempered and very fond of me. It does not talk much, but its talk is innocent and rational. No morbid symptoms have ever appeared in it since I took it from the nunnery in Montreal. Its plumage is soft and thick, and perfectly, entirely gray. My own impression is that it was naturally a gray parrot and had at that time of my sojourn in New York, either been dyed or painted that peculiar pea-green which so distinguished it then. I wrote to De Kock before leaving for England and told him something of the story. I have seen the last of Madame; in all probability I shall see the last of the Pea-Green Parrot, and I cannot help wondering when I enter a café or ride on an omnibus whether I shall ever run across Giuseppe Martinetti in the flesh, or whether the last of him was seen in truth, five years ago.
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