Mr. Crusoe had got up early, and broken every bit of glass and crockery that we owned except a few bottles, and he had made a bonfire of every stitch of our clothes except the goat-skins. It was too late to save anything, and even if it hadn’t been too late I couldn’t have interfered very well, for Mr. Crusoe had his revolver in his belt, and I believe he would have shot me in a minute if I had tried to interfere with him.
I sat down on a log without saying anything, and watched the fire burn. Mr. Crusoe kept getting his eyes full of smoke, and nearly choked to death two or three times, but I could see that he was enjoying himself for all that. After a while he thought that the fire would burn well enough without any more help, so he came and sat down. He didn’t very often sit down, because it was hard work to make his goat-skin trousers bend, so I knew that he must mean to be particularly friendly to me, otherwise he would not have sat down by me.
“You see, Friday,” he remarked, “we don’t need any civilized clothes. My grandfather lived for years without them, and found that goat-skin was much more healthy and stylish than flannel or cotton; so I thought I would just burn up all that rubbish and get rid of it.”
“So I see,” said I.
“Then my grandfather made his own dishes out of clay, and we ought to do the same. We are getting lazy, living as we do in the lap of luxury, and so long as we have everything we want, we shall never improve ourselves by inventing new things to supply our necessities. You see, Friday, that I was quite right in breaking the china, don’t you?”
Of course I didn’t venture to say that I didn’t see, so I just muttered something that he didn’t understand, though it seemed to satisfy him.
“Now,” said he, getting on his feet with a good deal of difficulty, because his stiff trousers tried their best to throw him down, “we’ll have breakfast, for I’m awfully hungry.”
I made the coffee, and opened a can of salmon, but when I told Mr. Crusoe that breakfast was ready, and he came up and said, “Pour me a cup of coffee, like a good fellow,” I asked him where his coffee-cup was.
I knew very well that he had broken all the cups, but I wanted to see what he would do.
Mr. Crusoe looked disappointed and puzzled, for I could see he was trying to think of something that he could use for a cup, but he didn’t succeed. “Never mind,” he said, presently; “give me the coffee-pot and I’ll drink out of the spout.” But after he had tried this, and burnt his tongue, and nearly dropped the coffee-pot, he gave it up, and went without his coffee.