The Days of a Man [^1893 



while picked up a good deal of English. From an 

 Irish maid he learned to sing with strong Hibernian 

 accent : 



I'm called Little Buttercup, sweet Little Buttercup, 

 Though I could never tell whoy! 



At the "Stanford yell" of those days, with its 

 ' ei g ht "rahs," he worked hard, but for a long time 

 without arithmetical precision. One day, however, 

 when the University was rejoicing at the lifting of 

 a great cloud, he listened intently to the reiterated 

 student shout, the old 



Rah, rah, rah, 

 Rah, rah, rah, 



Rah, rah, 



Stanford ! 



and from then on kept the count perfectly. Sitting 

 in the sunshine at the end of a great oak limb, he 

 took special joy in shrieking out the staccato lines 

 again and again. 



One Guatemala parrot with a green head never 

 learned to speak but was greatly interested in 

 Coloratura music. Left alone in the room with the graphophone 

 duets playing coloratura selections, he would strike the 

 key and keep up a creditable running accompani- 

 ment of his own. Occasionally losing the note, he 

 would tfren break out into a most discordant squawk, 

 with which in fact he generally closed his perform- 

 ance. Another bird of the same species (owned by 

 a little girl from Guatemala) would solemnly repeat 

 long Latin responses from the Mass, winding up 

 gayly with " Famos a los toros." J 



To the garden recently came two new tenants 



1 "Let's go to the bullfight." 



: 516 : 



