VERT— VERT ; OR PARROT GOSSIP 255 



During the early years of the last century a gentle- 

 man went out from England to look after some 

 landed property in the island, which had come to 

 him by inheritance, and when out there he paid a 

 visit to a friend who had a plantation in the interior. 

 His friend was away when he arrived, and he was 

 conducted by a servant into a large, darkened, cool 

 room ; and, tired with his long ride in the hot sun, 

 he soon fell asleep in his chair. Before long a loud 

 noise awoke him, and from certain scrubbing sounds 

 he made out that a couple of negro women were 

 engaged in washing close to him, on the other side 

 of the lowered window blinds, and that they were 

 quarrelling over their task. Of course the poor 

 women did not know that he was there, but he was 

 a man of a sensitive mind and it was a torture to 

 him to have to listen to the torrents of exceedingly 

 bad language they discharged at one another. It 

 made him angry. Presently his friend arrived and 

 welcomed him with a hearty hand-shake and asked 

 him how he liked the place. He answered that it 

 was a very beautiful place, but he wondered how his 

 friend could tolerate those women with their tongues 

 so close to his windows. Women with their tongues ! 

 What did he mean ? exclaimed the other in great 

 surprise. He meant, he said, those wretched nigger 



