And we
were having a nice little breakfast up to Antone's when Miller and the
governor and the gun-boat captain comes to get me. And Miller was going
to arrest me, put me in irons, not a minute's delay, not one, and I says
"For what?" And Miller throws up his hands and repeats: "For what? He
says for what? Mong Doo, for what?" And I says: "Yes, for what? What are
you going to arrest me for? For a little excursion trip, a little run
off shore, is it?--so's to eat our Christmas turkey in peace?" I see
that my play lay with the French naval officer, so I turns to him.
"There was a turkey. Old Antone here will tell you that it belonged to
one of my men, Mr. Leary here--that he won it fairly, and that the same
turkey was stolen from him in Henri Argand's. And Mr. Leary got it back.
And they would not let him have it in peace, and so, to escape
mistreatment, we jumped aboard the first vessel we saw in the stream and
put out the harbor. You yourself doubtless, saw us." He nodded. "Your
whole crew saw us. The whole harbor saw us. There was no concealment." I
stopped for the French captain and the governor to get that. Miller was
looking at me goo-goo-eyed, but both the officials nodded and said:
"That is true."
"And when we found ourselves safe out to sea, we had our dinner, our
Christmas dinner--in the peace we had sought. And surely these
gentlemen"--I bowed my best to the gun-boat captain and the
magistrate--"do not consider that a crime--to ask to be allowed to eat
our Christmas dinner in peace.
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