"Cracky, I'd like to," I told him.

"I went from Paris to the Channel in an airplane," he said.

Then he gave me a crack on the back and he put his arm around my
shoulder awful nice and friendly like, and it made me kind of proud
because I knew him.

"Now, you listen here," he said, "I'm in a dickens of a fix. You live
in Bridgeboro; do you know Jake Holden?"

"Sure I know him, he's a fisherman," I said; "the very same night your
father told us we could use this boat I saw him, and the next day I
went to try to find him for a certain reason, and he was gone away down
the bay after fish. He taught me how to fry eels."

"Get out," he said, "really?"

"Honest, he did," I told him.

"Well, some day I'll show you how to cook bear's meat. There's
something you don't know."

"Did you ever cook bear's meat?" I asked him.

"Surest thing you know," he said; "black bears, gray bears, grisly
bears--"

"Jiminy," I said.