He hacked off the bird’s head and neck; and after slicing off a portion of the meat, added the drumstick to Bruff’s share. He then began eating voraciously, giving his messmates a version of their “adventers,” as he called them, since the morning.
Billy would have made a splendid writer of fiction—a most exciting narrator, for he forgot nothing, and he added thereto in a wonderful manner. He threw in, with his mouth full, touches of description that made his companion stare, and his eloquence about the blackened hull of the vessel was wonderful.
“Talk about charkle fires,” he cried; “why, if my old mother was here she’d nail the lot and save it, to use up the fruit off some of these here trees and make jam.”
“Why, you can’t make jam out of a burnt ship,” said the stowaway.
“Who ever said you could, Davy Jimpny?” cried Billy. “But you wants charkle to make it with, don’t yer?”
“Yes, if you can’t get coke,” said the stowaway sadly.
“Well, I aren’t seen no gasworks on those here shores nowheres, and so you can’t get no coke, can you?”
“Course not.”
“Well, then, charkle it is. The whole deck’s charkle, and so’s the bulwarks, and the chunk end o’ the bowsprit?”
“And the masts, Billy?” said Small.