The Springdale news., 1889-10-04

tinu4d. but 1 needed him not. though did afterward What was the best thing to do? Buy bird oi some sort and pass it off as the Simon pure. said expedieney. At what tangled web we weave when, etc Had l never listened to expedieucy's voice-.but you can find out the moral of this story for yourself.
 ''I want to buy parrot. said I. "of some sort--a good talker, and hand some bird, and as like the one you ve sold as you ye got. n
 '"Ere's the identical.n said the bird seller, producing a cage containing a good looking bird enough, which he informed ne would talk very fairly, would not swear, and was as handsome as the Russell square one. The price was two pounds, and another for the cage, so l put down my three soyer- eigns, got with some difficulty Ca small mob of children following under the idea the parrot was going to perform a cab, and went back to the Hillstones with my purchase. who regarded me with sarcastic and baleful eye, his head cooked on one side as we went along. Alas! his gaze was only too suggestive!
 q am sure, Mr Philton.n . said Mrs. Hillstoue the next day at dinner, there being a collection of her "warm" friends present, Il am very much obliged to you for your andsome par rot, but l didn't want you to make me so valuable present.
 70, my dear Mrs. Hillstone.n said l, availing myself of this opening dex- trously, T am sure twenty pounds is nothing when one gives any thing to an esteemed friend like you.
 Twenty pounds for parrot! my word.a said young Ruggle of the Poultry. Il say, Dynley, l thought no one but you would run to that figure for a bird Ain't that what you gave for yours?n
 Mr. Dynley, an inoffensive and hen pecked man whom l knew little of. muttered something inaudible and blushed, while Mrs. Hillstone, to my great delight, took up the dialogue.
 Il dare say you wouldn't spend your money so foolishly on any friend, Mr. Ruggle. l shouldn't think that at all likely she said, ineisively, and for once l felt grateful for her Madame A,oa{ c+,,ta of ar,,,hacis fa. ,,a,,rrr Ruggle was effectually snubbed. But hang him, he had hit on very ticklish subject, for 1 had my suspicious, and they were soon changed to certainty.
 Where does Mr. DynleyZ Zive?9 I asked of my neighbor, prettyish in sipid girl, who went regularly to the museum to copy casts.
 ''In Russel square. Mrs. Dynley is a great friend Of ours she answered, she is so fond of birds.'
 Just what thought Russell square that trucuIent bird fancier had said. Of course there are more parrots than one, but a much smaller proportion of fools who would give twenty pounds for one. It might not be the same, bu | I shrewdly surmised it was. But after all, who was to know any thing? Only 1 remembered with some misgivings that my fair Alice had a most abnormal attachment to candor, and had over and over again apropos des bottles declared she could forgive any thing rather than deceit. My little stratagem of course did not deserve that name, but after asserting 1 had paid twenty pounds for a specific bird of the first water, it would certainly be most an moving if it turned out by any mishap that the real transaction came to light. At this moment l heard Mrs Dynley, who had a masculine voice. well assort- ing with the rule she exercised over her husband, asserting that her parrot, sent her by a friend, who was an amateur fancier q breathed freely again), was wonderful bird To whom Mrs. Hillstone replied, smiling broadly:
 An. my poor Polly is as charming its famous bird-and l shall al- ways thank Mr. Philton for having given it to me. Yates, bring it in 6Yates was a page of preternatural precocity, and much trusted by the old lady), ana let us hear 1t talk
 We were in the dessert stage. now. and the wine, must say. was really very superior to that good deal farther West, so that the assembled company were in a leisurely and appreciative mood. Young Ruggle smiled sarcas- tically when Mrs. Hillstone wasn't looking, and Alis1taw him and flashed one seornful glanN at him which much delighted me. For l had a sort of a notion that he had an idea of trying to win that exquisite girl, and he was eer- tainly richer (and well he might be, grubbing over some business about sugar from morn till night9 than 1. His chief diversion was foot ball, a rough, blundering pursuit which ab- horred, as mine was billiards, when a pool of fellows with few sovereigns