'Anything you like, except kill him, my son.'
'I see,' said Arizona, 'take his gun from him, and so on.'
'I'm givin' no advice,' replied Forder.
'That's all hunky, I tumble to the racket,' said Arizona. 'I reckons he sets a high value on that glass eye of his, eh?'
'It looks like it,' said Forder.
'We'll kapsualla it, as B.C. Bob says, and give it to the Major. He let on he'd worn 'em once. He wuz in your British Army, and now he's the toughest hoodoo on board.'
'Oh, give it the Major then,' said Forder, and he went off.
He met Bertie on the main deck, and they passed as if they were strangers in the Strand.
'Oh, go to bed,' said Forder to himself. But he knew he had done a good deed.
'Haw, bumptious ass, haw,' said Bertie, who had no notion how grateful he ought to be to the man who knew Texas and Arizona, and the pride of those who grow upon the high plateaus of the South-West. He didn't know for several days, and the reason for his remaining ignorant was the comic spirit that endures in man in all the strange places of the world and sea, and makes laughter flourish on the barrenest soil.