Rectus thought this was the worst kind of injustice, and I agreed with him, although I didn't see what we were going to do about it.
On our way home we met Rectus's Minorcan; he was a queer old fellow.
"Hello!" said he, when he saw Rectus. "Have you been out catching clams?"
We stopped and talked a little while about the sharks, and then the old man asked Rectus why he wanted to know, that morning, whether he was a Minorcan or not.
"I just wanted to see one," said Rectus, as if he had been talking of kangaroos or giraffes. "I've been thinking a good deal about them, and their bold escape from slavery, and their——"
"Slavery!" sung out the old man. "We were never slaves! What do you mean by that? Do you take us for niggers?"
He was pretty mad, and I don't wonder, if that was the way he understood Rectus, for he was just as much a white man as either of us.
"Oh no!" said Rectus. "But I've heard all about you, and that tyrant Turnbull, and the way you cast off his yoke. I mean your fathers, of course."
"I reckon you've heard a little too much, young man," said the Minorcan. "Somebody's been stuffin' you. You'd better get a hook and line, and go out to catch clams."
"Why, you don't understand me!" cried Rectus. "I honor you for it."