It seems that an american conjurer joined the American merchant marine and used to entertain the members of the crew of the ship with his magic tricks.

well, there was a parrot on board that ship and the parrot was the mascot of the crew, and whenever the magician would do a trick, the parrot would sit on the railing of the ship and would scream out very cynically, "It's Fake!"

Well one day the ship was out on the atlantic and was heavily bombed by enemy planes. The captain of the crew called the magician over and he said " Look Mac, why don't you take these crew men aft and show them some of your tricks? They're only getting in the way of the gunners here, they're not helping us, and they're very frightened. Take then aft there and take their minds off the bombing."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the magician, and aft they went, and he began his tricks.He produced a rabbit out of thin air and then in a cloud of smoke the rabbit disappeared and the parrot sitting on the railing of the ship screamed out "It's a fake!"

And the nagician produced a gun with a bayonet stuck in the end of it and again the parrot said, "It's a fake!"

Well finally a very large heavy bomb landed amid ships and the entire ship was blown up and sank at once and everybody was tossed in the water, including the magician and the parrot. Fortunately they both landed on a life-raft, and all day long the parrot stared at the magician--didn't take his eyes off him.

And that night the magician tried to sleep on the floor of the life raft, but he felt uneasy as if someone was staring at him. And he looked up and there in the dimness of the moonlight he could see the parrot sitting on the edge of the life raft staring at him.

And this went on all day and all night for two or three days and nights and finally on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot, who by this time was very tired, not having eaten anything,not having slept and not having had anything to drink for these several days was quite exhausted.

With his last ounce of strength he dragged hinself over to where the magician was and he said to him, "O.K., I give up. What did you do with the bloody ship?"

Sent in by Sally Underwood