“Larry,” said Will Osten, “did you remember to put the fresh meat in the canoe this morning?”
“Och! morther,” cried the Irishman, starting up with a look of desperate annoyance on his expressive face; “sure I’ve wint an’ forgot it! It’s hangin’ at this minit on the branch where I putt it last night for fear o’ the tigers—bad luck to them!”
“Ho, ho!” ejaculated Bunco, “paradise am gone a’ready!”
Larry turned upon his friend with a look that betokened no good, and appeared to meditate an assault, when Will Osten said quietly,—“Never mind, Larry; I luckily observed your omission, and put it into the canoe myself.”
“Ah, then, doctor, it’s not right of ’e to trifle wid a poor man’s feelin’s in that way, especially in regard to his stummick, which, wid me, is a tinder point. Howsever, it’s all right, so I’ll light another o’ thim cigarettes. They’re not bad things after all, though small an’ waik at the best for a man as was used to twist an’ a black pipe since he was two foot high.”
The Irishman lay down and once more sought to recover his lost paradise, but was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the canoe-men, who pointed to a part of the river’s bank where no fewer than eight crocodiles were lying basking in the sun. They were of various sizes, from eight to twenty feet in length, and slept with their jaws wide open, and their formidable rows of teeth exposed to view.
“Well, wot’s to do?” asked Larry, half rising.
“Oh! hums only want you to look to de brutes—’tink you hab never seed him ’fore to-day,” said Bunco.
“Tell him he’s mistaken, then,” replied Larry testily; “we’ve often seed ’em before, an’ don’t want to be roused up by such trifles.”
Saying this, the Irishman once more sank into a recumbent state of felicity; but his peaceful tendency was doomed to frequent interruptions, not only on that day, but on many other occasions during the voyage down the Orinoco.