Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer — Part 106

“Oh, it’s the crazy man!” came with a flash into Nathalie’s mind. What should she do? If she could only take off that horrible bandage from her eyes!

“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess with a merry laugh as she saw her companion cower in her chair. “It’s only Jimmie! Jimmie, stop that racket!” she continued with a loud clap of her hands. But Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another agonizing shriek. This time the princess called angrily, “Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!”

Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and realized that it was not an insane person screaming, gave a hysterical gasp and turned her head in the direction of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a black wall, barred her vision.

A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied by the loud flapping of wings, and then a jumble of French, Spanish, and English, jabbered in defiant rage, revealed that Jimmie was a cockatoo!

[Illustration: “Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with a merry laugh.]

But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with much loudness and clearness of note now broke into “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial proved too much for Jimmie’s audience, and peals of laughter rang out, in which Nathalie’s treble and the doctor’s deeper note mingled with the cockatoo’s song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in with “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief—” but this time he was summarily thrust from the room by an attendant—amid jabbering protests.

The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called the handkerchief.

As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, “No, you shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!” Notwithstanding her mother’s admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the invalid persisted in clutching her new friend’s hand in a vise-like grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding, however, that she was not to have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.