10 / 
JACK: A BIOGRAPHY. 
About this time Jack fell a prey to jealousy for a while — most 
unnecessarily. A sailor cousin brought home a green, long- 
tailed, pink-collared Brazilian parakeet, and his immediate 
relations failing to appreciate the gift, it Avas passed on to me. 
Never was such a feathered idiot hatched into the world before. 
Everything frightened it into fits. The sight of me in the dis- 
tance was enough to send it banging and screaming round its 
cage — I, Avho looked after it, and consulted its Brazilian tastes 
in the matter of nuts, capsicums, and other delights ! 
Like all idiots, the bird had an enormous appetite, and when 
not engaged in gorging itself, it would shriek for ten minutes 
together, and this seemed its only other enjoyment. But idiot 
as it was it had to be fed, &c., and Jack thought even this 
amount of attention a great deal too much for such a fool, and 
perhaps doubted whether I should be true to his little black 
coat, with such superior attractions of pink and green always 
being flaunted before my eyes. It is a proof of what an absolute 
nonenity the bird was, that even in our bird-and-beast-loving, 
pet-name-giving household, it never acquired a name, never was 
called anything but “ the parakeet,” or in moments of irritation, 
“that shrieking green goose.” Still Jack was jealous of the 
creature ; and one day the strain of pent-up feelings became too 
great to be borne patiently any more, and the temptation of 
several inches of the Brazilian’s magnificent green tail protruding 
from the bars of his cage suddenly presenting itself in front of 
Jack’s jealous beak, he seized the tail and the opportunity of 
revenge, and held on ! The Brazilian’s voice was raised in a 
storm of shrieks and oaths, inarticulate but quite unmistakable. 
I rushed to the rescue, to find the foreigner bending forward on 
his perch, his wings outspread and fluttering, in the vain 
attempt to wrest his tail from Jack’s firm hold, and rapidly 
swearing himself into a fit. 
Jack, meanwhile, hind claws firmly driven down into the 
soft deal table, was leaning back straining at the tail, I fear me 
in the vain hope that it would come off ; and uttering a series of 
delighted “Jacks” as well as a beakful of green feathers would 
let him. One word of reproach from me, and Jack let go his 
hold with such suddenness that the parakeet fell up against the 
front bars of his cage, and Jack fell over on the table behind ; 
but feeling uncertain as to the light in which I should view this 
prank, he picked himself up with marvellous promptitude, and 
hitched himself off sideways out of the reach of punishment, 
leaving me to soothe the parakeet. As the imp went off he 
may have seen I was laughing, and perhaps argued from that — 
“ I was a fool to be jealous. She can’t really care for the 
creature, because he is almost in a fit and yet she is laughing.” 
Anyway something made Jack feel magnanimous, and just as I 
had succeeded in soothing the parakeet a ‘little. Jack suddenly 
made his appearance with an enormous pink worm neatly coiled 
round his bill, and before I could interfere he had dropped his 
