So Colonel Bro had arranged for a day's shooting at Adolphe's and my entreaty and had fixed a Sunday, as on that day Adolphe and I were free from our desks and could take part. The rendezvous was to be at Colonel Bro's house at seven o'clock. We left the rue des Martyrs in three carriages and were at Enghien by nine. Here a breakfast, worthy of a Saxon thane, awaited the guests. At ten o'clock we began our sport; by five we again found a good meal served, and by eleven at night we were all back in our various homes. I was always ready before other people if it were a question of shooting, so I turned up at Colonel Bro's house by half-past six in the morning. I was shown into a little boudoir, where I found myself tête-à-tête with an immense blue-and-red Carolina parroquet. The parroquet was on its stand and I sat down on a sofa. Now I have always felt the greatest respect for men with large noses and animals with big beaks; not because I think them pretty, but because I believe Nature has her reasons when she produces a monstrosity. And on these grounds, Colonel Bro's parrot was fully entitled to my most profound respect. So I addressed a few polite words to it, as I sat down, as I have said, on a couch opposite its perch. The parroquet looked me over for a minute with that melancholy expression peculiar to parroquets; then, with that precaution which never deserts them, it slowly climbed down each branch of its perch, by the help of its claws and beak; then, finally, down the main pole of the perch itself, until it reached the ground. Then it came across to me, waddling, stopping, looking round it on all sides, and uttering a cry at every step it took, until it had reached the toe of my boot, when it began to try to climb my leg. Touched by this mark of confidence on the bird's part, I stretched out my hand to spare it the trouble of the climb; but, whether it was under a misapprehension as to the friendliness of my intentions, or whether it disguised a premeditated attack behind a benevolent exterior, it had scarcely caught sight of my hand within reach when it seized my fore-finger and gave me a double bite above the first joint right through to the bone. The pain was all the more violent because it was unexpected. I uttered a shriek, and, by a convulsive movement, my leg stiffened with the elasticity of a steel spring, and I kicked the parrot spinning with the end of my hunting-boot, in the centre of its breast, sending it flat against the wall. It fell to the floor, and lay there without a movement. Was its death caused by the kick or by the blow that followed? Was it caused by my boot or by contact with the wall? I never found out, and I made no attempt to ascertain, for I heard footsteps in the next room. I seized hold of the bird, which was still motionless, I raised the cover of the couch, I pushed it with my foot underneath into the dark depths, I let fall the cover again and I sat down as though nothing extraordinary had happened.