THE VERY LATEST PARROT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9028, 5 November 1892, Page 10 (Supplement)

THE VERY LATEST PARROT STORY.

The Feathered World tells a good parrot story. An old maiden lady who strongly objected to "followers," had as a companion a grey parrot with a wonderful faculty for picking up sentences. One day the old lady had cause to severely reprimand one of her maids for a breach of the " follower" ordinance. This so irritated the girl that as a wind up to the recital of her wrongs in the hearing of her fellow-servants and Polly, who happened to be with them, she exclaimed passionately, " I wish the old lady was dead." The parrot lost no time in showing off its newly-acquired knowledge when next' taken into the drawing-room, to the alarm of its elderly mistress, who superatitiously thought it was a warning from another world. She at once consulted the vicar, who kindly volunteered to allow his own parrot, which could almost preach a short sermon, sing psalms, Ac., to be kept for a short time with the impious one, in order to correct its language. To this end they were kept together in a small room for a few days, when the lady paid them a visit in company with her spiritual adviser. To their intense horror, immediacy the door was opened the lady's parrob saluted them with the ominous phrase, " I wish the old lady was dead !" tbe vicar's bird responding, with all the solemnity of an old parish clerk, "The Lord bear our prayer."