"Wa'n't, wa'n't I? How'd I git shipwrecked on a desert island, then, and nearly git et up by cannibals?"
"Aw-w!" jeered Hoagland, but Jodie's eyes were nearly popping out of his head.
"Yessir, I want to tell you I thought I was a goner! It was the year I shipped aboard the Saucy Sally, and she went down in a hurricane in the South Seas—never a man saved but me, and I floated ashore on a piece o' mast, more dead than alive, to this yere cannibal island; right purty spot, too, rubber trees, and green and yaller parrots all callin' Polly wants a cracker"
"Like Aunt Sarah's!"
"Shouldn't wonder a particle. So anyways up comes the cannibals, dancin' and givin' war whoops— Hey, Hoagland, you do that again and we'll be in a runaway! Whoa, there, Clara old girl!"
"I was just giving a cannibal war whoop."
"You try it again if you want me to give you somethin' to war whoop about! There, old lady! There, old girl! Well, up comes the cannibals, with the king at their head—I can see him still, plain as plain, a colored fellah with a big ring in his nose, and a skirt made outa parrot feathers, green and yaller, like I said, and a high silk hat on his black wool, that had belonged to some poor missionary they'd et. And that ain't the worst!"
"What's the worst, Noble?"
