A magician worked on a cruise ship. Since the audience was different each week, he did the same tricks over and over again. One problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick. Once the parrot understood, she started shouting in the middle of the show: "Look, it's not the same hat! Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table. Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?"

The magician was furious but couldn't do anything. It was, after all, the captain's parrot. Then the ship sank. After swimming for a few hours, the magician found himself on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the sea with, as fate would have it, the parrot. They stared malevolently at each other but did not utter a word. This went on for a day and then another, and then another.

Finally on the fourth day, the parrot could restrain itself no longer: "OK," she said, "I give up. What'd you do with the ship?"