much was accustomed to talk a good deal to himself and to the parrot. “And then they go and take the one thing that could be of no possible use to them but mattered a great deal to me. Never lock anything up, Polly, and you’ll never lose it. Whoever the thief was, he took that box simply because it was heavy and he couldn’t open it. If it was that boy he must be a strong one. But perhaps he had others to help him. Well, when he does open it he’ll be sorry he didn’t take something else. Mixed Moss , by ‘A Rolling Stone,’ won’t mean much to him, Polly, though it meant a lot of hard work to me.”
“Pretty Polly,” said the parrot, as the head of the idol dropped on the floor.
Captain Flint bent to pick up the fallen head, and a broken emu’s egg cracked under his feet.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” said Captain Flint, “won’t put Humpty Dumpty together again and won’t make me sit down to write Mixed Moss a second time.”
The green parrot gave a loud, angry shriek when Captain Flint picked up the little jade head.
“Oh well, take it, then,” said Captain Flint. The parrot waddled towards him along the table, and, gripping the edge of the table with one claw, took the head from him with the other.
“It’s just a summer wasted,” said Captain Flint. “And all my diaries gone too.”
“Pretty Polly,” said the parrot.
“There is one thing about it,” said Captain Flint, picking up an armful of clothes and shoving them into one of the cupboards, “those nieces of mine had nothing to do with it. They do play the game, and they’d never