“The kittle, is it? Sorra a kittle ye’ll touch, Massan, till it’s cool enough to let us all start fair at wance. Ye’ve got yer mouth and throat lined wi’ brass, I believe, an’ would ate the half o’t before a soul of us could taste it!”
“Don’t insult me, you red-faced racoon,” retorted Massan, while he and his comrades circled round the kettle, and began a vigorous attack on the scalding mess; “my throat is not so used to swallowin’ fire as your own. I never knowed a man that payed into the grub as you do.—Bah! how hot it is.—I say, Oolibuck, doesn’t it remember you o’ the dogs o’ yer own country, when they gits the stone kettle to clean out?”
Oolibuck’s broad visage expanded with a chuckle as he lifted an enormous wooden spoonful of soup to his ample mouth. “Me tink de dogs of de Innuit (Esquimaux) make short work of dis kettle if ’e had ’im.”
“Do the dogs of the Huskies eat with their masters?” inquired François, as he groped in the kettle with his fork in search of a piece of pork.
“Dey not eat wid der masters, but dey al’ays clean hout de kettle,” replied Moses, somewhat indignantly.
“Ha!” exclaimed Massan, pausing for a few minutes to recover breath; “yes, they always let the dogs finish off the feast. Ye must know, comrades, that I’ve seed them do it myself—anyways I’ve seed a man that knew a feller who said he had a comrade that wintered once with the Huskies, which is pretty much the same thing. An’ he said that sometimes when they kill a big seal, they boil it whole an’ have a rig’lar feast. Ye must understand, mes garçons, that the Huskies make thumpin’ big kettles out o’ a kind o’ soft stone they find in them parts, an’ some o’ them’s big enough to boil a whole seal in. Well, when the beast is cooked, they take it out o’ the pot, an’ while they’re tuckin’ into it, the dogs come and sit in a ring round the pot to wait till the soup’s cool enough to eat. They knows well that it’s too hot at first, an’ that they must have a deal o’ patience; but afore long some o’ the young uns can’t hold on, so they steps up somewhat desperate like, and pokes their snouts in. Of course they pulls them out pretty sharp with a yell, and sit down to rub their noses for a bit longer. Then the old uns take courage an’ make a snap at it now and again, but very tenderly, till it gits cooler at last, an’ then at it they go, worryin’, an’ scufflin’, an’ barkin’, an’ gallopin’, just like Moses there, till the pot’s as clean as the day it wos made.”
“Ha! ha! oh, ver’ goot, très bien; ah! mon coeur, just très splendiferous!” shouted La Roche, whose risibility was always easily tickled.
“It’s quite true, though—isn’t it, Moses?” said Massan, as he once more applied to the kettle, while some of his comrades cut up the goose that Frank had shot in the afternoon.
“Why, Moses, what a capacity you have for grub!” said François. “If your countrymen are anything like you, I don’t wonder that they have boiled seals and whales for dinner.”
“It’ll take a screamin’ kittle for a whale,” spluttered Bryan, with his mouth full, “an’ a power o’ dogs to drink the broth.”