Presently his cheerful listlessness changed sharply to an attitude
of vexed attention. In a scrap-book of drawings and caricatures
belonging to one of his nephews he had come across an unkindly
clever sketch of himself and his parrot, solemnly confronting each
other in postures of ridiculous gravity and repose, and bearing a
likeness to one another that the artist had done his utmost to
accentuate. After the first flush of annoyance had passed away,
Groby laughed good-naturedly and admitted to himself the
cleverness of the drawing. Then the feeling of resentment
repossessed him, resentment not against the caricaturist who had
embodied the idea in pen and ink, but against the possible truth
that the idea represented. Was it really the case that people
grew in time to resemble the animals they kept as pets, and had he
unconsciously become more and more like the comically solemn bird
that was his constant companion? Groby was unusually silent as he
walked to the train with his escort of chattering nephews and
nieces, and during the short railway journey his mind was more and
more possessed with an introspective conviction that he had
gradually settled down into a sort of parrot-like existence.
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