Page:Tudor Jenks--Imaginotions.djvu/236

218 When I heard Snowball (the Cook, you mind) puffing grampus-fashion, I says to him, says I:

"Snowball, you sunburnt sea-cook, float on your back and I 'll tow you a bit." So he did, and I grappled his wool and towed him as easy as if he were the Lord Mayor o' London in his kerridge. When I began to puff like a steam-tug, Snowball played horse for me while I lay baskin' like a lazy whale o' Sunday. So we went—Bo's'n tugging Cook, and Cook repayin' the compliment till we got in soundin's.

I'm not a-goin' to describe the Tappy-appy Islands. You 've got your Jography, and you can read about 'em any time. The only thing that's pecooliar about the islands you 'll see as I get along with my facts.

We come ashore in good shape, water-logged, but sound in every timber, and chipper as marines in a ca'm. We had nothin' but our togs to look after, and we set there makin' observations on the weather and the good qualities of our late shipmates, till we had drained off some. Then we begun to talk of explorin' a bit.

We had n't fixed on a plan when somethin' happened that knocked our plans into a cocked hat. Up came a lot of natives rigged out in feathers and things, jabberin' seventeen to the dozen, and maybe more. They surrounded us, and we hauled down our flags without firin' a gun—which we had n't any. They fitted us out with grass-rope bracelets, tied us into two shipshape bits o' cargo, shouldered us, and set sail inland, singin' songs o' triump'.

"Cook," says I, "we 're a-goin' int' the interior."

"I'm afeared we be," he pipes up sorrowful enough, thinkin' I meant they was cannibals.

"Avast!" says I. "Men don't sing when they 're hungry." And I was right. When they got us up to their town, they cast us loose, and gave us free board and fair lodgin's, considerin'—