Mr Stiff shook his head as solemnly as a sexton welcoming a fully furnished funeral, when, leaping up angrily, to his landlord's great astonishment, Lionel threw up the window, and then, though not without some difficulty, set at liberty the whole of his birds, the parrot rewarding him for his kindness by nipping a piece out of his finger. "There, now!" said Lionel, binding a handkerchief round his bleeding finger, after directing a blow right from the shoulder at the offending parrot, which, it is hardly necessary to say, missed its aim--"there now! take those empty cages away, and send the girl to sweep up the bits." Mr Stiff winked to himself as he obeyed, and rattled out of the room with quite a load of cages, but only to return at the end of five minutes. "Well," said Lionel, inquiringly, "what now?" "About them there ferrets, sir?" said Mr Stiff. "Oh! take them away by all means," said Lionel, impatiently. "Yes, sir, in course; but what shall I do with them?" "Wring their necks--sell them--send them down the drains after the rats," exclaimed Lionel; and the wire-fronted box, containing the furry, snakey animals, was carried down; but only for Mr Stiff to return at the end of ten minutes, hot, henpecked, and nervous, to encounter Lionel's savage glances. "Well, what next?" cried the young man to the troubled ambassador, who, open to receiving both fires, had now come charged with a message which he hardly dared to deliver, for, after the sweep made of birds and cages, he felt that it was rather dangerous to ask for fresh concessions, and therefore he remained silent until Lionel fiercely repeated his question. "Please, sir, there's them tortushes," said Stiff, at last. "_Con_-found the tortoises!" cried Lionel; "give them to some of the street boys." And, moving to the window, he hailed a doctor's boy passing with his medicine-basket. "Catch, my lad," he shouted; and he threw him down--one after the other--three of the sluggish little reptiles, with heads and legs drawn within their shells so as to be out of danger. "Now, I hope you are satisfied," he said to his landlord; who, after a good hunt had continued to discover in out-of-the-way corners the other three offenders. Mr Stiff's only response was a shake of the head--a motion kept up until he reached the lower regions, whence he returned, more hot and flustered than ever, to be greeted with a storm of abuse from his angry young tenant.