“Because we should soon be having a famine in the land. What are you laughing at, lad?”
“You,” I said, as I recalled a number of Morgan’s performances with the knife and fork.
He looked at me fiercely, and as if he were terribly offended; for Morgan’s Welsh blood had a way of bubbling up and frothing over like mead; but directly after there was a bit of a twitch at one corner of his mouth, then a few wrinkles started out at each side of his face about the eyes, and began to spread all over till he was showing his teeth.
“Ah, well, Master George,” he said, “I can see through you. Perhaps I aren’t such a very bad trencherman. Sarah says I do eat. But what’s the harm? Man can’t work well without; nor more can’t a fire burn without you keeps on putting plenty o’ wood. But I say, my lad, when those Injin fellows came down upon us, I began to think I should never be hungry again. Did I look very much frightened?”
“No; I thought you looked very brave.”
“Did I? Did you think so, Master George?”
“Yes; certainly.”
“Now, you’re not making fun of me, are you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, come, I’m glad of that,” said Morgan, brightening up; “because do you know, Master George, ’twix’ you and me, I don’t think I’m quite so good that way as I ought to be. I tried hard not to seem in a fright, but I was in one all the same, and seemed to feel arrows sticking into me, and them chopping at me with tomahawks. Wasn’t pleasant, look you, was it?”