My turn to select a name came next, and Oqua toying with her fan between her fingers, and with a smile she could not suppress, said to me:
"Well, Jack, why is it that you take no part in this discussion? You seem to have no interest in the matter of selecting names. Is it because you deem it of no importance, or do you disapprove of our custom of requiring every person to select a name in order to become a citizen?"
"Oh, as for that," I replied, "I approve your custom, but as yet I have not given any thought to the name I should select for myself. But as I have always been rather indifferent in regard to names, I hardly know how to give myself a cognomen which seems to be so much more important than I have been accustomed to think it."
"Oh then," interposed MacNair, "there is no hurry. You have an unquestioned right to take all the time for reflection that you require, provided that you are willing to remain a minor."
"I am not trying to evade the responsibility," I replied. "This matter may just as well be attended to now as at some future time."
Oqua then raising her eyes with a mischievous twinkle, asked with a comical expression of countenance:
I pressed my finger on my lips and with a side glance at Captain Ganoe, replied: "No, not Jack Adams, if you please."
MacNair caught the silent message but could not interpret its purport, and looking first at me and then at Oqua, said:
"What kind of a sideshow is this being exhibited under our very eyes and we left in the dark? What have you against Jack Adams, that you should thus take the very first opportunity to put an end to his existence, so that he will not have even the poor tribute to his memory of an inscription on a marble slab?"
"No mystery at all," I replied. "Jack Adams is all right for a sailor but too commonplace for this land of romance and sublimity. I intend to exercise my right to select a more euphonious title, more in harmony with the part I hope to play," and turning to Oqua I asked: "Will you please to suggest some appropriate name? Something short and significant."
"I have a name for you, Jack, that I think will be most appropriate. I have been told that you are a student, and our people greatly desire to obtain all the knowledge that is within reach of the outer world, its geography, history, manners and customs, and as you are inclined to be studious, we will doubtless want you as an instructor in our schools; and for that reason I select for you the name, Nequa, which signifies teacher."