“What are you putting up that top-knot of yours at me for?” said he to the cockatoo.  “Don’t ye know your own friends?  I’m going to let ye out, I am.  You’re going on to your perch, you are.”

“Eh, but you’re a bonny creature!” he added, as the cockatoo filled the cage with snow and sulphur flutterings.

“Keep away, keep away!” screamed the little ladies, playing a duet on the window panes.

“Out with you!” said John Broom, as he unfastened the cage door.

And just when Miss Betty had run round, and as she shouted through the keyhole, “Open the door, John Broom.  We’ve changed our minds.  We’ve decided to keep it in its cage,” the cockatoo strode solemnly forth on his eight long toes.

“Pretty Cocky!” said he.

When Miss Betty got back to the window, John Broom had just made an injudicious grab at the steel chain, on which Pretty Cocky flew fiercely at him, and John, burying his face in his arms, received the attack on his thick poll, laughing into his sleeves and holding fast to the chain, whilst the cockatoo and the little ladies screamed against each other.

“It’ll break your leg—­you’ll tear its eyes out!” cried Miss Kitty.

“Miss Kitty means that you’ll break its leg, and it will tear your eyes out,” Miss Betty explained through the glass.  “John Broom!  Come away!  Lock it in!  Let it go!”

But Cocky was now waddling solemnly round the room, and John Broom was creeping after him, with the end of the chain in one hand, and the perch in the other, and in a moment more he had joined the chain and the ring, and just as Miss Betty was about to send for the constable and have the door broken open, Cocky—­driven into a corner—­clutched his perch and was raised triumphantly to his place in the bow-window.

He was now a parlour pet, and John Broom saw little of him.  This vexed him, for he had taken a passionate liking for the bird.  The little ladies rewarded him well for his skill, but this brought him no favour from the farm-bailiff, and matters went on as ill as before.

One day the cockatoo got his chain entangled, and Miss Kitty promptly advanced to put it right.  She had unfastened that end which secured it to the perch, when Cocky, who had been watching the proceeding with much interest, dabbed at her with his beak.  Miss Kitty fled, but with great presence of mind shut the door after her.  She forgot, however, that the window was open, in front of which stood the cockatoo scanning the summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in the breeze.

And just as the little ladies ran into the garden, and Miss Kitty was saying, “One comfort is, sister Betty, that it’s quite safe in the room, till we can think what to do next,” he bowed his yellow crest, spread his noble wings, and sailed out into the aether.

In ten minutes the whole able-bodied population of the place was in the grounds of Lingborough, including the farm-bailiff.