Every time I heard the bell strike, that denotes the time on board a ship, I full of terror counted the hours until four o'clock; feeling sure that when that hour came, my enemies would begin their murderous attack.

This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies!

He shook his head and cleared the pentup anger and sadness that mixed his mind into a smoothie of emotions he bottled up inside, then scolded himself for allowing the outburst.

Mrs. Seal wandered about with newspaper cuttings, which seemed to her either quite splendid or really too bad for words. She used to paste these into books, or send them to her friends, having first drawn a broad bar in blue pencil down the margin, a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval.