“You!” Poetry said, “Or you can’t be Bill’s Man Friday.”
“But I get saved, don’t I?” Dragonfly said with a worried voice.
“Sure, just as soon as I get shot,” Poetry explained.
“And then you turn into a goat,” I said to Poetry, as he panted along beside us, “and right away you eat the prune can!”
With that, Poetry smacked his lips like he had just finished eating a delicious tin can. Then he leaned over and groaned like it had given him a stomach-ache.
Right that second, I decided to try Dragonfly’s obedience, so I said, “All right, Friday, take the can you’re going to be cooked in and fill it half full of lake water!”
There was a quick scowl on Dragonfly’s face, which said, “I don’t want to do it.” He shrugged his scrawny shoulders lifted his eyebrows and the palms of his hands at the same time, and said, “I’m a poor heathen; I can’t even understand English; I don’t want to fill any old prune can with water.”
With that, I scowled, and said to Poetry in a fierce voice, “That settles that! He can’t take orders. Let’s send him home!”
Boy, did Dragonfly ever come to life in a hurry. “All right, all right,” he whined, “give me the can!” He grabbed it out of my hand, made a dive toward the lake which was still close by us, dipped the can in and came back with it filled clear to the top with nice clean water.
“Here, Crusoe,” he puffed. “Your Man Friday is your humble slave.” He extended the can toward me.