One more hash mark on
his arm would have made him look like a convict. I listened and in the
meanwhile many mounds of sand urgently in need of shoveling remained
undisturbed. Upon this sand I occasionally cast a reflective and
apprehensive eye. The chief, noticing this, nudged me in the ribs with
an angular elbow.
"Don't mind that, sonny," he said, "I'll pump the fear-o'-God into the
heart of any P.O. what endeavors to disturb you. Trust me."
I did.
"Now getting back to this mermaid," he began in a confidential voice,
"what I say as I didn't claim to have saw. It happened this way and
what I'm telling you, sonny, is the plain, unvarnished facts of the
case, take 'em or leave 'em as you will. They happened and I'm here to
tell the whole world so."
"I have every confidence in you, chief," I replied mildly.
"It is well you have," he growled, scanning my face suspiciously.
"It's well you have, you louse."
"Why, chief," I exclaimed in an aggrieved voice, "isn't that rather an
unappetizing word to apply to a fellow creature?"
"Mayhap, young feller," he replied, "mayhap. I ain't no deep sea
dictionary diver, I ain't, but all this has got nothing to do with
what I was about to tell you.
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