The captain was on deck in two bounds, and with a shout of rage roused the whole crew from their slumbers.
‘Well!’ he roared to Double Mouth, ‘what are you about, standing there? Come, be quick!’
Double Mouth did not wait to be told twice, but was up the rigging like a squirrel, only the faster he climbed the faster Jacko plucked, until when the rescuer reached the spot it was a sadly bare bird which he tore from Jacko’s vindictive hands and carried back to his master.
Needless to say that Jacko was in dire disgrace after this exploit. However, in time he was forgiven and often amused the captain and crew with his pranks.
When the ‘Roxalana’ reached Marseilles after a quick and prosperous voyage, he was sold for seventy-five francs to Eugène Isabey the painter, who gave him to Flero for a Turkish hookah, who in his turn exchanged him for a Greek gun with Décamps.
SIGNORA AND LORI
Translated from Deutsche Blätter, 1867. No. 10.
A gentleman living at Güstrow, in Mecklenburg, who was very fond of animals, possessed a fine parrot, which had beautiful plumage, and could talk better than most of his kind. Besides the parrot, he had a poodle, called Signora Patti, after the great singer, whom the gentleman had once heard when he was upon a visit to Rostock; after his return home he bestowed the name upon his dear poodle.
Under the tuition of her master, the poodle began to be an artist in her way. There was no trick performed by dogs too difficult for her to learn. The parrot, whose name was Lori, paid the greatest attention whilst the Signora’s lessons were going on, and he soon had all the vocabulary, which the Signora carried in her head, not only in his memory, but on his tongue.