"I would much rather you would buy me a pocket-handkerchief. Here we are, shut up, without a chance of getting out, and with nobody to pity us; and we can't even have the comfort of crying, because we've got nothing to wipe our eyes with." "But at least," replied the woman, "you CAN cry now if you please, and when you had your other face you could not." "Buy me a handkerchief," sobbed the parrot. "I can't afford both," whined the cross woman, "and I've paid now for the maize." So saying, she went back to the tent to fetch her present to the parrots; and as their cage was still swinging Jack put out his hand to steady it for them, and the instant he did so they became perfectly silent, and all the other parrots on that tree, who had been flinging themselves about in their cages, left off screaming, and became silent too. The old parrot looked very cunning. His cage hung by such a long gold chain that it was just on a level with Jack's face, and so many odd things had happened that day that it did not seem more odd than usual to hear him say, in a tone of great astonishment,-- "It's a BOY, if ever there was one!" "Yes," said Jack; "I'm a boy." "You won't go yet, will you?" said the parrot. "No, don't," said a great many other parrots. Jack agreed to stay a little while, upon which they all thanked him. "I had no notion you were a boy till you touched my cage," said the old parrot. Jack did not know how this could have told him, so he only answered, "Indeed!" "I'm a fairy," observed the parrot, in a confidential tone. "We are imprisoned here by our enemies the gypsies." "So we are," answered a chorus of other parrots. "I'm sorry for that," replied Jack. "I'm friends with the fairies." "Don't tell," said the parrot, drawing a film over his eyes, and pretending to be asleep. At that moment his friend in the moss petticoat and feather cloak came up with a little measure of maize, and poured it into the cage. "Here, neighbor," she said; "I must say good-by now, for the gypsy is coming this way, and I want to buy some of her goods." "Well, thank you," answered the parrot, sobbing again; "but I could have wished it had been a pocket-handkerchief." "I'll lend you my handkerchief," said Jack. "Here!" And he drew it out, and pushed it between the wires. The parrot and his wife were in a great hurry to get Jack's handkerchief. They pulled it in very hastily; but instead of using it they rolled it up into a ball, and the parrot-wife tucked it under her wing. "It makes me tremble all over," said she, "to think of such good luck." "I say," observed the parrot to Jack, "I know all about it now. You've got some of my people in your pockets,--not of my own tribe, but fairies." By this Jack was sure that the parrot really was a fairy himself, and he listened to what he had to say the more attentively. CHAPTER V. THE PARROT IN HIS SHAWL.