“All right,” says I, “but I calc’late I’ll want to lay around a spell in the sun and rest up.”
“Take some t-t-towels with you,” says Mark.
“What for? Be as wet as I would.”
“Shucks! Use your head. D-d-didn’t expect to carry ’em in your mouth, did you? No. Well, just put ’em in a dishpan and float ’em ahead of you. Then you can rub yourself hard and get up circulation. Get you warm in a jiffy.”
“Put in my shoes, too,” says I. “Climbin’ over the rocks ain’t good for bare feet.”
We didn’t see a Japanese before I went to bed, which was pretty early, because I wanted to get in a good sleep. I got it, too. Shouldn’t wonder if I’m close to being the world’s prize sleeper. Anyhow, I come next to Mark. But he can wake up when he wants to. I never wake up till somebody gets rough with me.
Mark did just that—got rough with me—about three o’clock in the morning, and I turned out in the chilliest morning air you ever felt. It seemed like it would frost-bite you as fast as you got out from under the covers into it. Honest, it was just like sticking your feet into ice-water to shove them out of bed. Right there I lost my ambition to go swimming.
“I guess,” says I, “that I’ve done about all the letter-writin’ to the Japanese minister that I need to. I don’t owe him any letter.”
“’Tis chilly,” says Mark, and he grinned and sort of wriggled all over like he enjoyed something.
“I wish it was you goin’,” says I. “Maybe you wouldn’t giggle so hard.”