"Listen to what he says," the Frenchman exclaimed, in a very serious voice.

"It is your last, last chance.

If the secret is ever to be unravelled at all, by Methuselah's aid, now is, without doubt, the proper moment to unravel it." Muriel put out her hand and stroked the bird gently.

"Pretty Poll," she said, soothingly, in a sympathetic voice.

"Pretty Poll! Poor Poll! Was he ill! Was he suffering ?" At the sound of those familiar words, unheard so long till yesterday, the parrot took her finger in his beak once more, and bit it with the tenderness of his kind in their softer moments.