United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This conversation took place on the quay whilst her grace was absent, trying to still the unaccountable fear with which her heart had been filled by her maid's dream, by talking to the little brown urchins who swarmed about her the better to view the bird. "What do you think of them, Dekko old fellow?"
She had discarded the terrifying perruque, and her own hair, snowy-white, was puffed and curled about the little face, which was finely powdered and slightly rouged. She was a dream of beautiful old age, with Dekko just visible under a huge pink bow upon her shoulder. "May I present a very old woman to youth?" she said simply.
I still sat and waited, expecting every moment to hear the sound of Brock's rifle. Some time elapsed without a shot, however, and I was just about to follow him up and find out how things were going, when Roshan Khan suddenly exclaimed excitedly: "Dekko, Sahib, shenzi ata hain!"
Then the following year had come the Boer War, and the heroic tragedy of Spion Kop, which left her childless; after that, many years of utter devotion, to her grandson, who adored her; then the Great War and the Battle of the Falkland Islands, which left her absolutely bereft, with the care of the boy's greatest treasure, even the grey parrot, Quarter-Deck, Dekko for short.
You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting. Where he came off the perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that. Be careful though, keep well to the side and don't foul up the tracks. And don't get too far away, either!" He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise.
And as the duchess sat quietly, with Dekko the parrot fast asleep upon the back of her chair, as becomes a well-conducted bird, Fate crept up behind and dropped the black thread of hate and the purple thread of grief amongst the others she had tossed into the old lady's lap. She suddenly sat upright with a shiver.
She took him on her wrist, at which he spread his tail, rattled his wings, and puffed his ruff, whereupon the children fled, yelling. "Come now, say something nice to the poor little things. You've frightened them. Ask them if the boat is ready." Dekko gave a sudden piercing screech: "You damned, dirty lot!" he yelled. "You "
"Wellington, you have met Dekko, I think," laughed the girl. "Woomph!" grunted the dog disdainfully, as he cocked an eye at the bird, which ruffled its feathers, spread its red tail and looked down sideways and spitefully for a long moment. "My Gawd!" it suddenly shrieked. "My Gawd!"
"I'd bet my last piastre that Jill Carden's son's all right, but, all the same, one has to reckon with the glamour of the East. Love's all very well in a cool climate, but it's the dickens out here. Must get her anchored in safe waters. What d'you think, Dekko old friend? What course shall I set? Shall we go home, or to Heliopolis?" The bird scrambled awkwardly on to the dressing-table.
"Dekko the drawing," he would say, using the old Romany word for "let's see." "PRACtically" was a favourite word. "PRACtically the 'ole Peninsula " "PRACtically every one of 'em " "It weren't that," he would say; or, "I weren't bothering " "I'm not bothered " "Thee needn't bother, but it's a misfortunate thing " "Hates me like the divil 'ates Holy Water." "Like enough!" "A pound to a penny!"
Word Of The Day