It took me a good while to make a fire that morning, and I pretended that I couldn’t split kindlings without the axe, and when I once got the axe into my hands I took very good care not to let Mr. Crusoe get hold of it again. I made up my mind, however, that Mr. Crusoe must give up his notion about killing me, for it was really getting pretty dangerous, now that he had got the idea of knocking me on the head with the axe whenever he could catch me asleep. So, while the coffee was boiling, I said to him, “Mr. Crusoe, the reason why you are going to kill me is that your grandfather wasn’t cast ashore with an intelligent sailor-man, isn’t it?”
“That’s just it, my dear boy,” said he.
“But,” said I, “there was his man Friday, that I’ve heard you talk about. Now why shouldn’t I be your man Friday? It won’t do for you to try to get on without one, you know very well; and I don’t see where your Friday is to come from unless I help you out.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Mike,” exclaimed Mr. Crusoe. “And what’s more, if you are Friday I needn’t kill you; and I do assure you I don’t want to kill you if it can be avoided.”
“All right,” said I, “I’m your man Friday, and I hope you won’t give yourself the least trouble after this about killing me.”
Mr. Crusoe was as pleased with the notion of turning me into Friday as if he had been made a captain in the navy, but he said I couldn’t be made into Friday by just saying so, and that he would have to think how to do it in the correct way.
After breakfast Mr. Crusoe told me that I must burn a piece of cork and black myself all over, and that I might move out of my goat-skin clothes, and wear nothing but a towel tied round my waist. This suited me perfectly, and in a few minutes I was as black as a native African king. Then Mr. Crusoe told me I must walk about a mile down the beach, and then turn and run back to the house, and he would meet me, and consider that I was Friday.
I can’t tell you how nice it was to get rid of my goat-skin clothes. I felt as light as a feather; and after I had walked a mile away, and turned to run back, I felt as if I could run for a week without stopping.
I was running my best when Mr. Crusoe stepped out from the woods and aimed his gun almost at me. I thought first that he was going to shoot me, so the instant he fired I dropped flat on the beach, and then jumped up again and ran towards him, so as to get hold of his gun before he could load.
But he hadn’t fired at me after all. As I came towards him he put his gun down on the ground and smiled from ear to ear, and beckoned me to come to him in the most friendly sort of way. Then I remembered what he had told me about the way in which his grandfather had introduced himself to Friday by shooting a cannibal who was hungry, and was chasing Friday so as to catch him and put him on the coals.