विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

30 bird for nothing less than its weight in gold, and under a promise from its future master that he would obey implicitly its directions. The merchant laughed at the latter part of the Bahooroopee's terms; he, however, agreed to the price and paid the gold. After the bird had changed hands, it only remained for the Bahooroopee to take his leave; and the parting was one that both remembered during the whole remainder of their lives. It was an affecting sight to wit- ness the manly and unfeigned grief of the Bahooroopee, who was indebted to so great an extent to the feathery crea- ture before him for all he possessed, and he wept loud and long. At last, with the mutual exchange of the most en- dearing expressions of feeling and sympathy, and with hopes of again meeting, they parted from each other. Dushwant, the merchant who now owned the parrot, was a very wealthy and pious individual, endowed with many good qualities, but withal mean in the extreme. He put the parrot into a good cage, however, and sent him home by his servant to his wife. On reaching home, the merchant's wife asked the servant where he had got the bird from, and he replied, that his master had just purchased him for her diversion. "This parrot, you must understand, good mistress, is remarkably clever, possessing as much sense and knowledge as any human being." The mistress was quite elated at the idea of possessing a bird of such extraordinary parts, and of so much beauty in appearance. She directed one of the slaves to place the cage on a chowrung* of a large size, where the cat could not reach it. The merchant's wife was a lady who could boast of a fair share of beauty, gentle in her manners, and very prudent. She was dressed in the simplest and most ordinary attire, which did not become her, and was quite unsuited to the gracefulness of her demeanour and the unpretending but yet radiant cast of her beauty. She was not treated by her husband as she deserved to be, but yet she was a most vir- tuous woman and a faithful wife. She was allowed but * A square stool.