“Jonah’s the only book I recall very distinctly now.”
“That’ll do, if you can remember something in it. I connect it indistinctly with reminiscences of a whale.”
“Yes. Well, I was trying to convert that Indian by reading to him about Jonah and the whale, when he rose up suddenly and began fumbling about my hair with a carving-knife.”
“The Committee may go into detail. Now, why did he do this? Is the narrative calculated in any way to excite the nervous system of an untutored child of the forest?”
“No-no-no!”
“Nothing in it about depriving persons of their hair? Don’t say Jonah was scalped, hey?”
“No.”
“Did your assailant accompany the act with any conversation?”
“He merely remarked ‘How!’ and I thought I caught some rather indistinct reference to the Happy Hunting Grounds; but I’ll only swear to ‘How.’”
“‘How!’ They always say that. It indicates almost anything, from ferocious animosity to a desire to borrow plug tobacco. Then he took your hair, did he?”