“I know you did, Tommy, and it’s Irish when you means cooking meat.”
“Which I didn’t mean nothing o’ the sort, old lad, but mate. I meant, I hoped the savages hadn’t got hold of one of our messmates and was cooking he.”
“What! Canniballs?” whispered Wriggs, looking aghast. “Why not? There’s plenty on ’em out in these ’ere parts, where the missionaries ain’t put a stopper on their little games, and made ’em eat short pig i’stead o’ long.”
“Come, my lads, forward!” said Oliver, who seemed to have quite got over his adventure.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Smith, “we ain’t got no weepons ’cept our jack-knives; had we better scummage up to ’em?”
“Skirmish? Oh, no; there is nothing to mind.”
“That’s what the farmer said to the man about his big dog, sir, but the dog took a bit out of the man’s leg.”
“But that wasn’t a dog, Smith, it was a cat.”
“What, out here, sir, ’long o’ the savages? Think o’ their keeping cats!”
“No, no, you don’t understand. There are no savages here.”