“I ain't been dished up so green and tasty, like a salad,” he said, “since me and Moses and Pharaoh used to play draw poker, and Moses kept special providences up his sleeve, nor I ain't had such a good time since the last time I was licked for stealing horehound candy; which my recollection, ma'am, is in favour of straps rather'n shingles. It's all right. Lua's too small for me. You can't stretch nights without kicking other families out of bed, which makes reverberating scandals. If you sit down, you squash the judiciary; if you get up, you shake the throne. This civil war's no good. Why,
Mrs. Ulswater went below. Her nerves were perhaps a trifle upset. Not so Susannah. But Susannah was young. She sniffed the battle of life. She thrilled to the keynote of action. She fell upon Jimmie Hagan with eager inquiry as to his precise feelings throughout the late excitement. Sadler and myself stood watching the landing of the spearmen.
“You don't mind going with us?” I asked him.
“Me? No! I'll have to get even with you sometime or be restless. I ain't up to abducting Mrs. Ulswater nor Susannah, but I'll lay for you, doctor. You'd better put Jimmie on the crew. He's a good seaman. I'll be a guest, or a passenger, or an orphan, anything you like. Why, look yere, doctor. Mrs. Ulswater's been and took me out of temptation to stamp on my fellowman, and I'm grateful. She's given me a chance at innocence. Why, my fellowman's always lying around in my way, and I keep stepping on him, and kicking holes in his garments when he has any, and bumps on him where he hasn't, and then I goes off to eat sackcloth and ashes, and wear bread and water. That's mostly the monotonous way of it. But the point that gets me is this: I recommend an orphan, and she thinks that'll do for a king; I recommend a king, and she has him spanked for an orphan. Now, if a candidate for a throne ought to qualify that way, maybe he ought; but I never heard of it before, which is why you see me dished for a salad.”
So departed the _Violetta_ from the island of Lua. May its politics have peace!
The knock-out drops which Ram Nad kept in the ends of his fingers, on the whole, had worked better than mine, and Mrs. Uls-water's logic had been, as ever, penetrative, precise, practical.