“You see,” continued his instructor, “we must get people to suppose that you are troubled by a spirit of some sort—”
“Oh! only to suppose it,” cried Ippegoo hopefully. “Then I’m not really to be troubled with a spirit?”
“Of course you are, foolish man. But don’t you understand people must see that you are, else how are they to know it?”
Ippegoo thought that if he was really to be troubled in that way, the only difficulty would be to prevent people from knowing it, but observing that his master was getting angry, he wisely held his tongue, and listened with earnest attention while Ujarak related the details of the ordeal through which he was about to pass.
At the time this conversation was being held in the sea-green cave, Okiok, rising from his lair with a prodigious yawn, said to his wife—
“Nuna, I go to see Kunelik.”
“And what may ye–a–o–u–—my husband want with the mother of Ippegoo?” asked Nuna sleepily, but without moving.
“I want to ye–a–o–u–—ask about her son.”
“Ye–a–a–o–o–u!” exclaimed Nuna, turning on her other side; “go, then,” and she collapsed.
Seeing that his wife was unfit just then to enter into conversation, Okiok got up, accomplished what little toilet he deemed necessary in half a minute, and took his way to the hut of Ippegoo’s mother.