“Exactly what he said, sir.”
“Sure! That’s what I have done with every curio he has given me.”
For the first time I realized that in my boyhood I had accumulated a fine line of fiction from Dodovah Vose.
But I forgave him in my thoughts, for he took me into the big kitchen and fried me the finest chicken I ever ate. And while he fixed up my supper I told him how I had learned diving with his brother. I comforted him, too, by telling him that I had given up the work only temporarily.
But I switched him when he tried to find out what I was up to at that time. The plug-hat part of my program seemed to puzzle him very much. I was not ready with any good explanation. I figured that I might have some kind of a story ready in the morning, after I had slept on the thing. I began to rely considerably on my work as a fabricator; I had shown quite a lot of aptitude and readiness on short notice, I reflected.
I found myself holding an impromptu reception in the tavern office that evening—and they were all there with their little gimlets of questions, boring for information, you can bet! Therefore I broke away early and went to bed. I staved them all off in good shape, for I could be dignified in those clothes I was wearing. What I was afraid of was that Uncle Deck would pop in. He would not have used any gimlet; he would have set upon me with a pod-auger of inquisition, and would have ridden on it so as to bear down hard! And I had not my story ready!
XI—THE FAILURE OF AN UNCLE-TAMER
FURTHERMORE, in the morning I was just as much at sea. I had gone to sleep as suddenly as if somebody had hit me a tunk on the head; too much fried chicken and hashed brown potato! I did not wake up till Dodo-vah Vose marched through the tavern halls, playing the long roll on his gong. The March sun, level with the eastern windows, quivered with glorious light when I opened my eyes on it. I had all sorts of reasons to be downcast, but I was not when I waked and saw that sun.