I
don't know that we was any more staggered, though, than the rest of
'em. One sure sign that Old Hickory and Auntie was excited was the
fact that they'd begun callin' each other by their given names.
"Cornelia," says he, "we've done it. We have achieved adventure."
"In spite of our gray hairs--eh, Matthew?" says she.
"In spite of everything," says Old Hickory. "True, we haven't been
shipwrecked, or endured hardship, or spilled any gore. But we have
outfaced a lot of ridicule. If the whiskered old sinners who hid away
this stuff had met as much they might have given up piracy in disgust.
Who knows?"
With that Mr. Ellins snips the end from a fat black cigar, jams his
hands in his pockets, and spreads his feet wide apart. He's costumed
in a flannel outing shirt open at the neck, and a pair of khaki
trousers stuffed into hip rubber boots with the tops turned down. Also
his grizzly hair is tousled and his face is well smeared up with soot
or something. Honest, if he'd had a patch over one eye and gold rings
in his ears he could have qualified as a bold, bad buccaneer himself.
Only there's an amiable cut-up twinkle under them shaggy brows of his,
such as I'd never seen there before.
"Killam," says he, "why don't you chortle?"
"I--I beg pardon?" says Rupert.
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