I knew that he sometimes sat up late to practice his violin-playing;
and in my confusion of terror I heeded neither that the house was
silent nor that the window over his doorway showed a blank and unlit
face to the night. I knocked and knocked again, pausing to call his
name urgently, at first in hoarse whispers, by-and-by desperately,
lifting my voice as loudly as I dared.

At length a voice answered; but it came from the end of the passage
next, the street, and it was not Mr. Goodfellow's.

"D--n my giblets!" it said, in a kind of muffled scream.
"Drunk again! Oh, you nasty image!"

It was the barber's accursed parrot. I could hear it tearing with
its beak at the bars of its cage, as if struggling to pull off the
cloth which covered it.

A window creaked on its hinges, some way up the court.

"Hallo! Who's there?" demanded a gruff voice.

I took to my heels, and made a dash up the passage for the street.
The cage, as I passed under it, swayed violently with the parrot's
struggles for free speech.

"Drunk again!" it yelled. "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me--here's a
pretty time o' night to disturb a lady!"

No longer had I any thought of braving the night and the perils of
the road, but pressed my elbows tight against my ribs and raced