"Tell my friend her name, Giuseppe," said De Kock, beginning on some
more asparagus.

Giuseppe stood in his patronizing way--quite the _grand seigneur_--
with the light falling on his solitaire, making it so brilliant that
it fascinated and at the same time fatigued my eyes.

"The name of my parrot? Monsieur De Kock, he know that well. It is
Felicite--you catch--Fe-li-ci-te. It was the name of my wife."

Then his wife was dead. De Kock must have made a mistake.

"It is an unusual name for a bird, is not it?" said I.

"Monsieur is right. Not often--not often--you meet with a bird that
name. My first wife--my _first_ wife, gentlemen, she was English.
_You_ are English--ah. Yes. So was she. The English are like this."
Giuseppe took a bottle out of the cruet-stand and set it on the
table in front of him. He went on, "When an Englishman an
Englishwoman argue, they say"--here he took the bottle up very
slowly and gingerly and altered his voice to a mincing and
conventional tone--"Is it oil or is it vinegare? Did you not say
that it was vinegare? I thought that it was oil Oh! Now I see that
it is vinegare."

"Bravo!" exclaimed De Kock. "And so you did not get on with the
Englishwoman then I suppose, Giuseppe, and took Madame the next time?"
We were both laughing heartily at the man's mimicry when once again
the parrot shrieked. "But for goodness sake don't say I told you!"
Giuseppe walked off to speak to it and my friend and I were left