“Well, I can’t say, you know,” said Uncle Ben.
“There is my cockatoo here.”
“Oh, pardon me for interrupting you, my sailor friend, but a cockatoo hasn’t half the sense and sagacity a cat has.”
“Poor Cockie wants to go to bed!”—This from the bird on Ben’s shoulder.
“Hear that?” cried Ben laughing.
“When you can make your cat give utterances to such a sensible remark as that, I’ll—but, my dear soldier, it is eleven o’clock, and Tom and Lizzie, poor little dears, have both dropped off to sleep. Good night!”
“Good-night! Good-night!” shrieked the cockatoo in a voice that waked the children at once. “Good-night. Cockie’s off. Cockie’s off.”
And away went the sailor.
But next morning Shireen had an adventure that very nearly put a stop to her story-telling for ever.
She had gone off after breakfast for a ramble in the green fields and through the village. It happened to be Saturday, so there was no school to-day, and just as she was coming out of the cottage where the sick child was, and promising herself a nap in Uncle Ben’s hammock, who should she see coming up the street with her little brother in a tall perambulator, but her favourite schoolgirl, Emily Stoddart.