Mrs. Westley Keyts, the bars being down, thereupon began another parrot
story. But Miss Eubanks, who had observed that all parrot stories have
"damn" in them, suddenly conceived that matters had gone far enough in
_that_ direction. Affecting not to have heard Mrs. Keyts's opening of "A
returned missionary made a gift of a parrot to two elderly maiden
ladies--" Marcella led the would-be anecdotist to the punch-bowl, and,
under the cover of operations there, spoke to her in an undertone. Mrs.
Keyts said that the thing had been printed right out on the funny page
of "Hearth and Home," but over the cup of punch that Marcella pressed
upon her, she consented to forego it on account of the minister's wife
being present.
There were other anecdotes, however; not of a parrot character, but
chiefly of funny sayings of the little ones at home. Mrs. Judge
Robinson, with the artistic mendacity of your true _raconteur_,
accredited to her own four-year-old a speech about the stars being holes
in the floor of heaven, although it was said of this gem in "Harper's
Drawer," where she had read it, that "the following good one comes to us
from a lady subscriber in the well-known city of X----.
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