"Perhaps it is; but it always seemed to me that it must taste just as a goat smells."
"O, Wal, what a boy you are! Who ever heard of tasting a smell?"
"I don't care. There's a mighty difference between a cow and a goat. A cow's breath is as sweet as a rose."
[CHAPTER IV.]
GABRIEL QUESNARD.
As they lay with heads pillowed on their packs, "Ned," said Walter, "I wish we could imitate Charlie Bell, John Rhines, and Fred Williams in something besides building a platform in a tree-top, or getting coral and sponge to take home with us, or even obtaining information about the people and country we are in."
"I think this is first rate," said Ned, sticking his legs, which were stiff and swollen with walking, up in the air. "What would you have, Wal? I think we've both done pretty well. I made a hundred dollars a month clear, last voyage; you, twice that; which is more than they all did when they started."
"But we have been hired, and have only done what other people laid out for us; whereas they struck out for themselves, planned, worked, and built a vessel, as you may say, out of nothing, owned and loaded her to boot."
"There were four of them, and they had good advisers; but, when left on that rock alone, didn't you get hold of Jacques, and wasn't it due to your resolution and contrivance that the vessel got into Marseilles, and made all she did make?"
"Ned, do you think getting money or being smart is to be put before everything else?"