“Well, it’s not easy to describe that to folk who have never seen them,” said the sailor, with a slight grin. “In the first place, they don’t wear boots the whole length of their legs like you, Nuna.”
“Surely, then,” remarked the hostess, “their legs must be cold?”
“By no means, for they cover ’em well up with loose flapping garments, extending from the waist all the way down to the feet. Then they don’t wear hoods like you, but stick queer things on their heads, of all shapes and sizes—sometimes of no shape at all and very small size—which they cover over with feathers, an’ flowers, an’ fluttering things of all colours, besides lots of other gimcracks.”
How Rooney rendered “gimcracks” into Eskimo we are not prepared to say, but the whole description sent Nunaga and her mother into fits of giggling, for those simple-minded creatures of the icy north—unlike sedate Europeans—are easily made to laugh.
At this point Angut struck in again, for he felt that the conversation was becoming frivolous.
“Tell me, Kablunet,” he began; but Rooney interrupted him.
“Don’t call me Kablunet. Call me Red Rooney. It will be more friendly-like, and will remind me of my poor shipmates.”
“Then tell me, Ridroonee,” said Angut, “is it true what I have heard, that your countrymen can make marks on flat white stuff, like the thin skin of the duck, which will tell men far away what they are thinking about?”
“Ay, that’s true enough,” replied the sailor, with an easy smile of patronage; “we call it writing.”
A look of grave perplexity rested on the visage of the Eskimo.