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
down on the floor. 'You're a liar! You're a liar! Pickles.'
Having delivered himself of this bad language, Billy waddled to his
master's chair, and climbing up by the aid of his claws and beak,
soon established himself in his old position. Slivers, however, was
not attending to him, as he was leaning back in his chair drumming
in an absent sort of way with his lean fingers on the table.
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