Barry Pain

“ If they make it worth my while to sing I'll sing. If not, I'll sulk, and then they'll sell me." It was only natural. Birds have to do the best they can for themselves, just the same as human beings.
Then all of a sudden one day, as I were cleaning the silver, he give two or three little twiddly chirps, then come hopping along to the side of the cage and looked down at me out of his little sharp eyes, to see how I was taking it.
"Very well, William," says I. "If you can sing you shall sing, else no sugar." ”

“ For it takes a fire to roast a joint in the summer just as much as in the winter, and living in a Turkish bath is what no Christian could be asked to do. Still, it gives me a feeling of nervousness, knowing as cats are artful. And that sandy cat were a bit too artful for his own safety. One morning I had just come down from the upstairs room, and with my hand on the kitchen door I heard a crash. I rushed in and saw what it was. The cat had got in at the window, and made a jump for the cage. ”

“ So I said as I'd leave at the end of my month, and no entreaties, nor the offer of another canary, though well-meant, could move me. I was sorry to part with them, and sorry to leave the place, but it had to be.
Ah! I shall never find another place like it. As a rule, a gentleman has money, and then he don't do on one general. All 1 has to look forward to is over-work, under-feeding, and nagging, and miseries. But all the same, I couldn't stop after William had gone.
What the other William says is, don't take a place at all. ”

“ Riches is not everything. Why, there's my own sister, kitchen-maid in a house where they're rolling in money, but I wouldn't change with her. The other day, the cook being short of parsley, my sister pops into the kitchen- garden to get some, and there's the master smoking his cigar. ”

“ And he never had any of that silly vanity that you'll see in some people, though he was but a bird, while they may have Christian homes and advantages showered on them like water on a duck's back. There's many a woman won't sing at all if there's much talking going on, though speech is free to all, and we might all speak at once but for the inconvenience. ”

“ I took his time by the kitchen clock, and he went for seven minutes, and you could see by the way he stopped suddenly, shook his head, and stamped his claw on the perch, that there was a lot more to come only he couldn't remember it. He'd let himself get out of practice. However, not to discourage him, I gave him a little bit of sugar. ”