"You're an ornament to th' Service," I says, tryin' to crawl into th' shadder of the pole. 'Twas about a mile long and an inch wide.
"Stow y'r face," says Terry, tyin' a bundle with a thumb big as three of it.
"I'd enjoy tellin' you what I think of you," I says, "on'y I can't think of it all to onct. How's y'r patriotism ripplin' now?" I says. "Looka th' Flag, th' dear old Flag, floatin' up above y'r crazy head."
Terry swallers hard. "Casey," he says, "I may uv let ye in f'r this, but—" He picks up his little bundle and carries it over to th' foot of th' pole. Then he falls back and salutes. Then he comes over to me, an' his face was blossomin' into a grin! Yessir, there was a hole in them rugged features of his you could've shoved a blanket-roll into. "Oh, Casey," he says, "Casey, man, if th' Old Boy soaks it to us this way f'r what we done, wouldn't ye, oh, wouldn't ye just like to see what he'd a done to that theayter, if he was runnin' this little old town?"
An' thinkin' of that, I grinned too.
CHAPTER V
THE SUPERFALOUS MAN
I came back, but I am not certain that I had ever left the old temple of Tzin Piaôu. I roused, then, but I am not sure that I had been asleep. However it may have been, I was conscious of being there in the temple of Tzin Piaôu for a moment, long enough to observe that my old heathen priest, half reclining on his slab, was thoughtfully fingering a hard lump in his girdle, just over the pit of his stomach.
But the moment he saw me looking at him, he made an imperative little gesture, and—
"Tell th' Professor that other one, Casey," a husky voice commanded. "You know. Th' day we lost th' friend o' Sly's."