When the gypsy had finished her song, Jack felt as if he was covered all over with cobwebs; but he could not move away, and he did not mind them now. All his wish was to please her, and get close to her; so when she said, in a soft, wheedling voice, "What will you please to buy, my pretty gentleman?" he was just going to answer that he would buy anything she recommended, when, to his astonishment and displeasure, for he thought it very rude, the parrot suddenly burst into a violent fit of coughing, which made all the customers stare. "That's to clear my throat," he said, in a most impertinent tone of voice; and then he began to beat time with his foot, and sing, or rather scream out, an extremely saucy imitation of the gypsy's song, and all his parrot friends in the other cages joined in the chorus. My fair lady's a dear, dear lady-- I walked by her side to woo. In a garden alley, so sweet and shady, She answered, "I love not you, John, John Brady," Quoth my dear lady, "Pray now, pray now, go your way now, Do, John, do!" At first the gypsy did not seem to know where that mocking song came from, but when she discovered that it was her prisoner, the old parrot, who was thus daring to imitate her, she stood silent and glared at him, and her face was almost white with rage. When he came to the end of the verse he pretended to burst into a violent fit of sobbing and crying, and screeched out to his wife, "Mate! mate! hand up my handkerchief. Oh! oh! it's so affecting, this song is." Upon this the other parrot pulled Jack's handkerchief from under her wing, hobbled up, and began, with a great show of zeal, to wipe his horny beak with it. But this was too much for the gypsy; she took a large brush from her cart, and flung it at the cage with all her might. This set it violently swinging backwards and forwards, but did not stop the parrot, who screeched out, "How delightful it is to be swung!" And then he began to sing another verse in the most impudent tone possible, and with a voice that seemed to ring through Jack's head, and almost pierce it:-- Yet my fair lady's my own, own lady, For I passed another day; While making her moan, she sat all alone, And thus and thus did she say: "John, John Brady," Quoth my dear lady, "Do now, do now, once more woo now, Pray, John, pray!"