no drawing out, inasmuch as he was always ready to exhibit his
powers of conversation. He was not a pious bird--belonging to
Slivers, he could hardly be expected to be--and his language was
redolent of Billingsgate. So Billy being so clever was quite a
character in his way, and, seated on Slivers' shoulder with his
black bead of an eye watching his master writing with the rusty pen,
they looked a most unholy pair.

The warm sunlight poured through the dingy windows of the office,
and filled the dark room with a sort of sombre glory. The atmosphere
of Slivers' office was thick and dusty, and the sun made long beams
of light through the heavy air. Slivers had pushed all the scrip and
loose papers away, and was writing a letter in the little clearing
caused by their removal. On the old-fashioned inkstand was a paper
full of grains of gold, and on this the sunlight rested, making it
glitter in the obscurity of the room. Billy, seated on Slivers'
shoulder, was astonished at this, and, inspired by a spirit of
adventure, he climbed down and waddled clumsily across the table to
the inkstand, where he seized a small nugget in his beak and made
off with it. Slivers looked up from his writing suddenly: so, being
detected, Billy stopped and looked at him, still carrying the nugget
in his beak.

'Drop it,' said Slivers severely, in his rasping little voice. Billy
pretended not to understand, and after eyeing Slivers for a moment
or two resumed his journey. Slivers stretched out his hand for the
ruler, whereupon Billy, becoming alive to his danger, dropped the
nugget, and flew down off the table with a discordant shriek.

'Devil! devil! devil!' screamed this amiable bird, flopping up and