“Said they didn’t quite know what to make of you, sir; but they all agreed that you looked a bit hard in the mouth, and bull-doggy—that’s what they called it. The first mate said, too, that he quite agreed with them, for he could see that if ever it came to a fight with any of the natives, two-foots or four-foots, you’d never flinch.”
“I hope not,” said Sir Humphrey; “but I also hope we may never be put to the test.”
“But—”
The captain stopped.
“Oh, there’s a but,” said Brace merrily. “It would have been quite a decent character if it had not been for that but.”
“What was the but, captain?” asked Sir Humphrey.
“He couldn’t say how you’d come up to the scratch if it was trouble with the long twisters that swarm up the rivers and in the damp forests of these parts.”
“Snakes?” suggested Brace.
“That’s right, sir: boa constructors, as the showman said they was called, because they constructed so many pleasing images with their serpentile forms.”
“Well,” said Sir Humphrey, “to be perfectly frank, I don’t know myself how I should behave under such circumstances, for I have a perfect dread of serpents of all kinds. The poisonous ones are a horror to me.”