Cockie

You are a cockie chap to go again a man axing where and what you 'a been when you are axing a place, [...]

No more being cockie. This is, as of now, an official operation. I do not take anymore chances for foolish reasons. I have to do this job absolutely right the first time. This is the only shot any of us are going to have, I'm afraid.

They're not going to stand for a couple of actors bossing the place [The Old Vic theatre] around any more. We shall be out, old cockie.

That chap could be one of them. Or it could be the local butcher or newsagent, or cow cockie. We don't know. We've got to keep going.

He smacked his lips a couple of times and grimaced. God, his mouth tastled like the bottom of a cockie’s cage. Probably smelt as appealing too.

Joseph was a cockie, a small-scale farmer. Such farmers were called cockies in the early days of European settlement in Australia because, like the cockatoos that weaved and screeched above them, they made their homes on the edges of creeks and permanent waterholes.