AN ILLUSTRIOUS INVALID

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1926, Page 20

AN ILLUSTRIOUS INVALID

THE PAEROT AT "THE CHEBHIBE i CHEESE." It will come as welcome news to his wide circle of friends all over the world that the parrot who for many years has held receptions in a famous Fleet street tavern (the "Cheshire Cheese") is recovering from the attack of pneumonia that seemed likely to prove fatal (says the London "Daily Telegraph"). He has'lived a-crowded and" a distinguished life. If parrots could write as well as talk, the publishers would compete fiercely for his reminiscences. Liko so many others who have risen to eminence as citizens of London, he is not Cockney Lorn. On the contrary, his origins are at once alien and humble. In the absence of any evidence bearing on the question, |we may charitably assume that he comes .of honest parents, but to be frank all that is known of the early stages of his career is that he arrived i. from Liverpool in a perorated cigarbox, the sole survivor of nine African compatriots. Not very long ago the sea captain who escorted him to England paid him a visit, but no mention was made in their interview of the home or family of the great Londoner. IHe himself has never been known to refer to the subject. -A fluent conversationalist, always courteous to visitors, whatever their status, he is no egotist in his talk. He has been presented to ! Princess Mary and to other Boyal personages, and he has received half a dozen Premiers. Ambassadors have called upon him, and an endless stream of American tourists has attended his levees. He has kissed in his time hundreds of fair ladies, but his head is not turned. He remains the simple, „ unaffected bird he was before Ms name became known outside the bar-parlour. Not even his temper has been affected by homage. Not once haß primitive nature overcome city politeness in him, and converted a restrained -salute from the beak into a peck or a bite*. His is an equable temperament. Through long years he has been ejaculating "Scotch" without visible signs of impatience, although it is only in the last few days that, on the advice of an expert from the Zoo, he has been given hiß-first glass of whisky;' Now he is' convalescing in a covered cage in an upper room, with Dr. Johnson's chair and dictionary at his side, and a cheerful fire burning before him. Temporarily at least he has lost his voice. Whether the events of this strange destiny which took him in youth from the forests and set him in the shadow of famous men have been passing through his mind we cannot tell. Sceptics assert that your parrot, for all hit talk, has no more brains than a blackbird. It. may be so. Perhaps he is merely dreaming vaguely of gigantic nuts. His fate would possibly have been a happier one had he lived to share a nest in Africa and to die in obscurity. Fame. has its penalties as well as its rewards. These are dark conjectures; all that we can say with certainty is that he enjoys life and that he would be sorry to be parted from it. He is one of the veterans of Fleet street now, and we, trust that he will survive to celebrate his jubilee with a rendering of his popular imitation of the withdrawal of a cork from a bottle.