"There's tea in that 'ere box. Ef you want some you kin have it. I got it out'n a ship that came from China. There ain't better tea nowhere."
We thanked him heartily for his kindness, and declared at the same time that we regarded good tea as the very rarest luxury of life. Again his face cracked into something like a smile, and he said,
"Better tea never was drunk in China. Ef you like, I'll put sugar in it."
We declared that sugar was the very thing of all the luxuries in the world that we were most attached to, but we could not drink it with any sort of relish if we thought it would be robbing him of his stores. If he had these things to spare we would cheerfully use them, and pay him three or four times their value in provisions from the ship.
"Darn the ship!" cried Crusoe; "I don't care a cuss about the ship, so long as you don't get drunk and tear my house down!"
Upon this we protested that we would sooner tear the hair out of our heads by the roots than tear down so unique and extraordinary a structure as his house; and as to his furniture, it was worth its weight in gold; every stick of it would bring five hundred dollars in the city of New York.
Whereupon Pearce stirred about in the obscure corners with wonderful alacrity, rooting up all sorts of queer things out of dark places, and muttering to himself meantime,
"I'm as fond of company as any body, ef they're the right sort; and I'll be squarmed ef I ain't an independent character too. I don't owe nobody for a buildin' of my house, or a makin' of my furniture. I did it all myself, long before California was skeer'd up."
He then put down the old kettle on the fire, and, as soon as the water was boiled, emptied a large cupful of tea into it, and set it near the fire to draw. While the tea was drawing, he fried a panful of kid, and broiled some fish on the coals; and when it was all done, he gave us each a tin plate, and told us to eat as much as we wanted, and be darn'd to the ship, so long as we behaved like Christians. Then he furnished us with cups for the tea, and some sea-biscuit, which he dug out of the cupboard; and I must declare, in all sincerity, that we made a most excellent supper.