“What name, Jimmy?” I asked.
“Yabber stick,” he answered shortly, and squatting down near me, cut busily on.
“What name him talk?” I said, for that was the way to ask him what message he was cutting.
Jimmy spat thoughtfully on the ground and looked wise, but said nothing; and I saw I would have to flatter him a little before he would tell me much. He dearly loved to be important, and generally had to be coaxed and flattered a good deal.
“My word, Jimmy!” I said; “you plenty savey. Me no more savey yabber stick.” This pleased him immensely, so I added, “I think you close up savey white-fellow paper-yabber, Jimmy.”
He grinned from ear to ear with delight, and then taking the letter stick in one hand, and pointing at it with his pipe, began to instruct the poor ignorant Missus.
Jimmy looked very gay to-day. He had a small Union Jack flag hanging from his belt like a little apron. His dilly-bag was decorated with strips of red turkey twill and bunches of white feathers, and he had tied a little mussel shell on to the end of every bobbing curl of his head, and they danced and jingled as he talked.
“This one stick him yabber boomerang,” he began, pointing to a little mark like a V drawn sideways— so <.
I looked carefully at it, and then Jimmy spat once or twice before he explained that when that mark “sat down” on a “yabber stick,” it meant you were being asked for the loan of a boomerang. Then he spat again, and took a few pulls at his pipe, and looked very wise indeed.
“My word, Jimmy!” I murmured.