"I should have to explain
how it happened, you know. As it is I shall say nothing. But I
shall not forget my revolver again when I go to walk."
And Crusoe and I went swiftly down the path which the captain no
longer disputed.
IX
"LASSIE, LASSIE. . ."
Two or three days later occurred a painful episode. The small
unsuspected germ of it had lain ambushed in a discourse of Mr.
Shaw's, delivered shortly after our arrival on the island, on the
multifarious uses of the cocoa-palm. He told how the juice from
the unexpanded flower-spathes is drawn off to form a potent toddy,
so that where every prospect pleases man may still be vile.
Cookie, experimentally disposed, set to work. Mr. Vane, also
experimentally, sampled the results of Cookie's efforts. The
liquor had merely been allowed to ferment, whereas a complicated
process is necessary for the manufacture of the true arrack, but
enough had been achieved to bring about dire consequences for
Cuthbert Vane, who had found the liquid cool and refreshing, and
was skeptical about its potency.
Aunt Jane took the matter very hard, and rebuked the ribald mirth
of Mr. Tubbs. He had to shed tears over a devastating poem called
"The Drunkard's Home," before she would forgive him. Cookie made
his peace by engaging to vote the prohibition ticket at the next
election.
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