"'Give him an arm, Casey,' says Terry. 'Can't you see he ain't as young as us? Brace up, old sport, we'll look out f'r you.'
"So th' three of us steers th' sorrerful sailorman out onto th' muelle, an' there warn't a livin' soul on th' whole river front but just the accidental caraboo! He was standin' hitched to a cart, right where old Ma had left him.
"Th' mayreener breaks down when he sees that caraboo. 'A buffalao!' he blatters. 'I ayn't seen one of them since I was a gye young sheperd—fisherman, on me father's little farm in th' valleys—beaches o' Bengal! Mytes, lead me to th' buffalao.'
"'That ain't a buffalo, sport,' says Terry. 'Buffalos has hair. That's a caraboo, an' you don't want no part of him. They ain't safe.'
"''E'll not 'urt me,' says th' mayreener. 'Aoh, th' buffalaos I've fed and watered with these 'ands in th' dear old dyes. Lead me to 'im, mytes.'
"We steers him over and he falls on that caraboo's neck and cries into his ear and blubbers some kind of talk to him: an' th' caraboo wriggles his ear an' waggles his little tail an' blubbers back. Them two understood each other! It knocked me flat. All my respec' f'r th' mayreener comes back.
"'Ay, mytes,' he bleats, 'it mykes me young again to talk with 'im. Put us up on th' cart, mytes.'
"'Ye can't drive him, sport?' says Terry, doubtful.
"'F'r years I done nothink else,' says th' mayreener. 'Aoh, the old, 'appy dyes! Put us up, mytes, an' pass us th' nose rope.'
"'If th' caraboo kills him,' says Terry, 'it'll on'y put th' pore old feller out of his mis'ry.' So we hists him up an' gives him th' nose rope, and there he set cross-legged like a nigger, jerkin' th' rope an' talkin' caraboo-talk, an' th' caraboo goes! Yes, sir, th' mayreener drives him up an' down like he'd been born there! I never seen no other white man that could do that.