head from under his wing and thrust it forward, peering down at his mistress from his perch on the painted headboard.
"Haramzada!" he cursed wildly in Hindu. "Haramzada! Iflatoon! Paji! Paji!" He rose on his toes and flapped his wings, creating a little gust of warm air that fanned Wakefield's face.
Old Mrs. Whiteoak had heaved herself up in the bed. She had protruded from under the quilt her large feet in purple bed-socks, and followed them by long, yellowish legs.
"My dressing-gown," she gasped. "On the chair there. Hand it to me. I'll show them whether I'll have a chit-chat flibbertigibbet canary in the house."
Wakefield knew that he should have run to the dining-room and called one of his elders. It was an unprecedented thing that Grandmother was doing, getting up without Aunt Augusta or one of the uncles to help her. But his desire for novelty, for excitement, was greater than his prudence. He brought the heavy purple dressing-gown, and helped her to put it on. He put her stick into her eager, shapely old hand.
But to get her on to her feet! That was a different matter. Drag as he would at her arm, he could not budge her. "Ha!" she would grunt with each heroic effort, her face getting more and more the colour of her dressing-gown.
At last she laid down the stick. "No use," she muttered. "No use. . . . Here, take both my hands, and pull me up." She held her two hands up to him, an eager, expectant look in the one eye which her nightcap did not conceal. It was evident that she was quite hopeful that the little boy could perform the task. But, when he took her hands and strove with all his might, the result was that his feet slipped on the rug and his small body collapsed into her arms. She broke into sudden laughter and clutched him to her, and he, half laughing at the predicament, half crying at his own impotence, began to play with the strings of her nightcap.
