“Come, come, don’t grumble; it never makes a person happy, though it is said there are some fellows who are never happy unless they are grumbling, but I don’t believe that.”
“But if the flood does not subside before night, where are we to sleep?” asked Hector.
“Why, up in the boughs, like birds or ’possums, to be
sure,” answered Harry. “By-the-bye, we may find a ’possum, and he may serve us for supper.”
“But how can we get a fire to cook him?” inquired Reggy with a slight suspicion that Harry was quizzing his brother.
“Oh, as to that, we must eat him raw; but many a sailor, wrecked on a desert island, has had to live on worse fare,” said Harry.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish we had never come out to this horrible country. We shall be starved, to a certainty,” moaned Hector; “I’m desperately hungry already.”
“Are you? Poor fellow! then you will have to come to ’possum, or have to eat a tree-lizard, or our friend the laughing jackass, or her eggs, if she happen to have a nest in this tree. We must set off on a voyage of discovery directly.”
“I wonder you can joke, placed in so fearful a position as we are,” said Hector, in an angry tone.