Well, sir, I looked under and over and between and among for them, but not a paddle was there to be seen. I moved things and rooted into the sand and went around near-by trees to see if they were stood up out of sight, but all I got was a pair of scratched hands.
“Mark,” says I, “there hain’t no paddles.”
“What?” says he, like somebody’d hit him in the stomach.
“The paddles are gone,” I said.
He sat plump down on the sand and let his head lop over forward. You could tell by the way he acted he was ashamed. He was cut.
“I m-m-might ’a’ known it,” says he. “I m-m-might ’a’ seen it.”
“Shucks!” says I. “Nobody could have guessed it.”
“It’s exactly what I’d ’a’ d-d-done in his place,” he says. He sighed, and then: “And I wasn’t undervaluin’ him, n-n-neither. It was n-n-nothin’ but carelessness.”
“Pickles!” says I. “Let’s make the best of it.”
“How?” says he.