United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Old Dibs liked it all tiptop, and, more than anything, Tom's honest, willing face; but he shied a bit when we walked along to the tree in question, and looked up sixty feet into the sky, where he was to hang out on his little raft. "Good heavens, Riley!" he says, "do you take me for a bird, or what?"
Smith, what are you sticking at?" "It'll never sustain the coin," said Old Dibs, jouncing up and down on it like a dancing hippopotamus. "You weren't meaning to take that up, too?" cries Tom. "I thought that was part of the scheme?" said Old Dibs. "Why, you said a whole cow yourself. Didn't he, Bill?" This was a facer for Tom, but all he asked was how much money there was.
"Wot price Piccadilly an' Regent Street to-night?" "Come along, my dear; let's get home out of this." "Absolute bosh, my dear boy, from beginning to end doing business with 'em every day o' my life!" And then a hoarse snatch of song: "'They'll never go for England' not they! What ho! 'Because England's got the dibs!"
At the beginning of the war there was a business crisis by the force of things, and they had to tighten their belts like the rest. Then they got their revenge and swept the dibs in and hoarded stuff up, and speculated, and they're still revenging themselves. You should see the stocks of goods they sit on in their cellars and wait for the rises that the newspapers foretell!
This, an extra bulk, and a kind of contented look he hadn't wore before, was what life on the island had done for Old Dibs; and he branched out a bit in the line of household favorite, cutting kindling wood for Sarah, gutting fish, scraping cocoanut for the chickens; and the pair of them would sit and gossip for hours about the neighbors how Taalolo had driven his wife out of doors, and the true inwardness of the king's quarrel with Ve'a, and why the Toto family was in ambush to cut off Tehea's nose.
But you'll notice it is Smith every time, though we always called him Old Dibs, because of the money that he had and threw around so regardless. My first sight of him was on the front porch, mopping his forehead, and asking whether he might have board and lodging by the week.
For some minutes after his first appearance that enormous crowd sang, "He's a jolly good fellow!" with great enthusiasm. Then, when this member of the Government at last succeeded in getting as far as: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen," some one started the song with the chorus containing the words: "They'll never go for England, because England's got the dibs."
Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those girls, those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters read out for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's owny Mumpsypum. Laughter in court. Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you. Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain.
And then it wasn't easy to be anything but fond of Old Dibs, for he was a nice man to live with, never turning up his nose at the poor food we give him, and always so kind and polite to Sarah, my wife, that she fairly idolized him.
Smith," said I, "you'll only need shut your eyes and trust to us, and take it all as it comes." "Boys," said Old Dibs, kind of solemn and helplesslike, "you'll do the square thing by me, won't you? You won't sell an old man for blood money? You won't get me up there and then strike a trade with them that's tracking me down?" You ought to have seen Tom Riley's face at that!
Word Of The Day