4 Part 04

'By Gad!' cried the Duke. 'That's the Duchess's bedroom! He's after her jewels! Call the police! Summon the army! Bring up the cannon! Charge with the Light Brigade!' But even as he spoke the Pelican was flying up into the air. As he flew, he turned himself upside-down and tipped the window-cleaning water out of his beak. Then I saw the top half of that marvellous patented beak sliding out of his head, ready for action. 'What's that crazy bird up to?' cried the Duke. 'Wait and see,' shouted the Monkey. 'Hold your breath, old man! Hold your nose! Hold your horses and watch the Pelly go!'

Like a bullet the Pelican flew in through the open window, and five seconds later out he came again with his great orange beak firmly closed. He landed on the lawn beside the Duke. A tremendous banging noise was coming from inside the Pelican's beak. It sounded as though someone was using a sledgehammer against it from the inside. 'He's got him!' cried the Monkey. 'Pelly's got the burglar in his beak!' 'Well done, sir!' shouted the Duke, hopping about with excitement. Suddenly he pulled the handle of his walking-stick upwards, and out of the hollow inside of the stick itself he drew a long thin sharp shining sword. 'I'll run him through!' he shouted, flourishing the sword like a fencer. 'Open up, Pelican! Let me get at him! I'll run the bounder through before he knows what's happened to him! I'll spike him like a pat of butter! I'll feed his gizzards to my foxhounds!' But the Pelican did not open his beak. He kept it firmly closed and shook his head at the Duke.

The Giraffe shouted, 'The burglar is armed with a pistol, Your Grace! If Pelly lets him out now he'll shoot us all!' 'He can be armed with a machine-gun for all I care!' bellowed the Duke, his massive moustaches bristling like brushwood. 'I'll handle the blighter! Open up, sir! Open up!' Suddenly there was an ear-splitting BANG and the Pelican leaped twenty feet into the air. So did the Duke. 'Watch out!' the Duke shouted, taking ten rapid paces backwards. 'He's trying to shoot his way out!' And pointing his sword at the Pelican, he bellowed, 'Keep that beak closed, sir! Don't you dare let him out! He'll murder us all!' 'Shake him up, Pelly!' cried the Giraffe. 'Rattle his bones! Teach him not to do it again!' The Pelican shook his head so fast from side to side that the beak became a blur and the man inside must have felt he was being scrambled like eggs.

'Well done, Pelly!' cried the Giraffe. 'You're doing a great job! Keep on shaking him so he doesn't fire that pistol again!'

At this point, a lady with an enormous chest and flaming orange hair came flying out of the house screaming, 'My jewels! Somebody's stolen my jewels! My diamond tiara! My diamond necklace! My diamond bracelets! My diamond earrings! My diamond rings! They've had the lot! My rooms have been ransacked!'

And then this massive female, who fifty-five years ago had been a world-famous opera-singer, suddenly burst into song. 'My diamonds are over the ocean, My diamonds are over the sea, My diamonds were pinched from my bedroom, Oh, bring back my diamonds to me.' We were so bowled over by the power of the lady's lungs that all of us, excepting the Pelican, who had to keep his beak closed, joined in the chorus.