"Well, blast his jib! He made me make all sorts o' promises not to open my port-hole about it."
"It is a very funny project, isn't it?" asked the reporter.
"Oh, no, not at all. I've been at it afore. I worked at a man up in Canada for about three months and got him nigh half done, when he died."
"It's a pretty dangerous operation, this tattooing?" was the next gentle insinuation.
"Yes, sometimes. But Henneberry can stand it. He looks as if he had the constitution and he appears to be reckless of the consequences. He wants to be a show-fellow. He's struck on it, just the same as that Canada chap who kicked. He's got an idea that there's money in it, and he's always talkin' about that Grecian chap as is with the circuses, you know."
"How long will it take to do the job?"
"Well, that I don't exactly know. He talks of havin' two of us at it. Maybe you're the other fellow, and he's in a stormy hurry about havin' it finished up, and wants a fellow to stay in the house with him all the time so that he can take his tattooing just when he feels like it. Are you good in drawin' dragoons, flyin' fish, elephants, boey constrictors and sich, young man?"
I replied that I was an adept in delineating animals of the sort named.
"Then I guess he'll want you. I used to be a pretty good drawer myself afore I fell from that South American, but my hand shakes no little now; but you just lay the lines, and if I don't stick 'em in as clean as a copper plate, my name ain't Jack Hogan."
"What will he pay for the job?"