parrokeet

Updated: June 9, 2025

With a slightly insolent motion he dragged his chair around sidewise, turned his shoulder to me and stared across the room at a gaudy lithograph of the good ship Isabella bound for Naples, eighty-five dollars first class. Philomène, with a porky look, asked him what he wished. He announced in French that he desired of all things to "strangle a parrokeet."

- The Best Short Stories of 1915: And the Yearbook of the American Short Story