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Mahony's answer to this was a couple of pound-notes: SO THAT MY BEST MAN SHALL NOT DISGRACE ME! His heart went out to the writer. Dear old Dickybird! pleased as Punch at the turn of events, yet quaking for fear of imaginary risks. With all Purdy's respect for his friend's opinions, he had yet an odd distrust of that friend's ability to look after himself.
"Dickybird, can't you see us, with our backs to the wall, in that little yard of yours, trying who could take the biggest bite? or going round the outside: 'Crust first, and though you burst, By the bones of Davy Jones! till only a little island of jam was left?"
Dick Holden closed his desk and locked his office door. "There'll be nothing doing in our line for some while. I'm going to Europe for two or three months to learn something about architecture. Better pack up your family and come along, Davy." David laughed grimly. "My Dickybird, you're quite a joker." Trips to Europe! when the apartment was a miniature hospital. Davy Junior was sickly.
A kindly, gray-whiskered old gentleman came tottering and rocking into view, his rosy, wrinkled face beaming benediction on the world as he passed through it on the sunshine dappling the undergrowth, on the furry squirrels sitting up on their hind legs to watch him pass, on the stray dickybird that hopped fearlessly in his path, at the young man sitting very rigid there on his bench, at the fair, sweet-faced girl who met his aged eyes with the gentlest of involuntary smiles.
"They'll just be jealous." Turning to make sure Emerson had disembarked, Nathaniel Hawthorne winked at Graham and whispered, "Here's a little note that I, too, wrote to Mrs. Fields. Not a word now to Emmy, Dickybird, or Marky-Mark." Graham laughed out loud at the nicknames being given to Emerson, Dickens, and Twain, as well as the schoolboy-like antics being displayed by these great men.
But Purdy was not done; he hummed and hawed and fidgeted; he took off his hat and looked inside it; he wiped his forehead and the nape of his neck. Mahony knew the symptoms. "Come, Dickybird. Spit it out, my boy!" "Yes ... er.... Well, the fact is, Dick, I begin to think it's time I settled down." Mahony gave a whistle. "Whew! A lady in the case?" "That's the chat.
Don't you like old Dickybird?" asked Mahony in no small surprise. "Oh yes, quite well. But..." "Is it because he still can't make up his mind to take your Tilly eh?" "That, too. But chiefly because of something he said." "And what was that, my dear?" "Oh, very silly," and Polly smiled. "Out with it, madam! Or I shall suspect the young dog of having made advances to my wife."
He was still blinking in the half-dark when a figure sprang out from behind the door, barging heavily against him, and a loud voice shouted: "Boh, you old beef-brains! Boh to a goose!" Displeased at such horseplay, Mahony stepped sharply back his first thought was of Ned having unexpectedly returned from Mount Ararat. Then recognising the voice, he exclaimed incredulously: "YOU, Dickybird? You!"
It began by Purdy referring to the satisfactory fashion in which he had disposed of his tools, his stretcher-bed, and other effects: he was not travelling to Melbourne empty-handed. Mahony rallied him. "You were always a good one at striking a bargain, my boy! What about: 'Four mivvies for an alley! eh, Dickybird?" This related to their earliest meeting, and was a standing joke between them.
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