“Any other funny pets on the Sans Pareil?”
“Oh, yes, lots. We had an adjutant. Ah! Nie, we did use to laugh at that bird, too. Five feet tall he was, and a more conceited old fop of a fellow I never did see. He had a pouch that hung down in front. Well, he used to eat everything, from a cockroach to half a leg of mutton; and when he couldn’t hold any more he used to stuff his pouch.
“‘Comes in handy, you see,’ he seemed to say, alluding to this pouch of his. ‘But, dear me!’ he would continue, ‘ain’t I a pretty bird? Look at my pretty little head; there ain’t much hair on it; but never mind, look at my bill. There is a bill for you! Just see me eat a fish, or a frog, or a snake! And now, look at my legs. Pretty pair, ain’t they? See me walk!’
“Then he would set off to promenade up and down the deck till the ship gave a bit of a lurch, when down he would go, and the monkeys would all gather round to laugh and jibber, and Snooks, as we called him, would deal blows with his bill in all directions, which the monkeys, nimble though they were, had some difficulty in dodging.
“‘Can’t you see,’ he would say, ‘that I didn’t tumble at all—that I merely sat down to arrange my pretty feathers?’ And Snooks would retain his position for about half an hour, preening his wings, and scratching his pouch with the point of his bill, just to make the monkeys believe he really hadn’t fallen, and that his legs were really and truly serviceable sea-legs.
“I’ve lain concealed and watched the adjutants in an Indian marsh for hours; there they would be in scores, and in every conceivable idiotic position.
“Suddenly, perhaps, one would mount upon an old tree-stump, and spread wide his great wings. ‘Hullo, everybody!’ he would seem to cry, ‘look at me. I’m the king o’ the marsh! Hurrah!
“‘My foot’s upon my native heath,
My name, Macgregor;’
“or words to that effect, Nie.”