Once, Jones and
his friend Brown were sitting in a café talking together.
Jones said, “I
bought a parakeet
last week.”
“Does it talk?”
Brown
asked.
“No, and I’m
very angry about it,” Jones told him. “The man who sold it to me said it was a
talking parakeet.”
“Maybe it’s not
happy,” Brown said.
“It ought to be
happy,” Jones replied. “It’s got a large cage and plenty of seed and fresh
water to drink.”
“Ah yes,” Brown
said, “but does it have any toys to play with. Parakeets aren’t like ordinary
birds. They need something to do. Buy it some toys for its cage.”
This seemed a
good idea, so Jones went to the pet shop and bought a mirror, a swing, a ball
on a little chain and a ladder for the bird to play with.
He put all these
things in the bird’s cage.
A few weeks
later, Jones met Brown again.
Jones was very
angry with Brown.
“I did what u
suggested,” he said, “and the next morning when I went to look at the bird, it
was lying on the floor of its cage. It died a few minutes later. Because of
your advice, I’ve wasted a lot of money.”
Brown was very
surprised by this news.
“And the bird
never talked?” he asked.
“Never,” Jones
said. He thought for a moment. Then he said, “Although when I looked at it
lying there on the floor of its cage, I though I did hear a small
voice.”
“Really? What
did the voice say?” asked Brown.
“I think it
said, ‘Who moved the ladder?’” Jones told him.