[39] This tale is found in the early Italian novelists,
        slightly varied, and it was doubtless introduced by
        Venetian merchants from the Levant:  A parrot belonging
        to Count Fiesco was discovered one day stealing some
        roast meat from the kitchen.  The enraged cook,
        overtaking him, threw a kettle of boiling water at him,
        which completely scalded all the feathers from his head,
        and left the poor bird with a bare poll.  Some time
        afterwards, as Count Fiesco was engaged in conversation
        with an abbot, the parrot, observing the shaven crown of
        his reverence, hopped up to him and said:  “What! do
        you like roast meat too?”

In another form the story is orally current in the North of England.  Dr. Fryer tells it to this effect, in his charming English Fairy Tales from the North Country:  A grocer kept a parrot that used to cry out to the customers that the sugar was sanded and the butter mixed with lard.  For this the bird had her neck wrung and was thrown upon an ash-heap; but reviving and seeing a dead cat beside her she cried:  “Poor Puss! have you, too, suffered for telling the truth?”

There is yet another variant of this droll tale, which has been popular for generations throughout England, and was quite recently reproduced in an American journal as a genuine “nigger” story:  In olden times there was a roguish baker who made many of his loaves less than the regulation weight, and one day, on observing the government inspector coming along the street, he concealed the light loaves in a closet.  The inspector having found the bread on the counter of the proper weight, was about to leave, when a parrot, which the baker kept in his shop, cried out:  “Light bread in the closet!” This caused a search to be made, and the baker was heavily fined.  Full of fury, the baker seized the parrot, wrung its neck, and threw it in his back yard, near the carcase of a pig that had died of the measles.  The parrot, coming to itself again, observed the dead porker and inquired in a tone of sympathy:  “O poor piggy, didst thou, too, tell about light bread in the closet?”

Somewhat more credible is the tale of the man who taught a parrot to say, “What doubt is there of this?” (dur in cheh shuk) and took it to market for sale, fixing the price at a hundred rupis.  A Moghul asked the bird:  “Are you really worth a hundred rupis?” to which the bird answered very readily:  “What doubt is there of this?” Delighted with the apt reply, he bought the parrot and took it home; but he soon found that, whatever he might say, the bird always made the same answer, so he repented his purchase and exclaimed:  “I was certainly a great fool to buy this bird!” The parrot said:  “What doubt is there of this?” The Moghul smiled, and gave the bird her liberty.

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