potion. Fortunately we were seated on the ground.

Triplett was in his glory. If I have failed to mention recently our
hard-bitten old navigator it is only because we had seen comparatively
little of him. Resting on his titular dignity as chief he seldom
appeared in public, spending most of his time up his tree snoozing or
reading an old copy of the New Bedford "Argus," which he was never
without. Tonight, however, he blazed forth in full regalia, wearing
his best blue marble, his visor-cap wreathed with nabiscus blossoms,
his case-hardened countenance lighted with conviviality. Following an
interminable period of eating and drinking came a long speech by
Baahaabaa which, like most after-dinner speeches, meant nothing to me.
Captain Triplett replied. The gist of Triplett's remarks, memorized
from the "Argus," were taken from the 1916 report of the New Bedford
Board of Trade. When he proclaimed that "besides cotton goods, 100,000
pianos were turned out yearly and 8,500 derby hats every day," his
audience, set off by Whinney, burst into uproarious applause. The
climax was reached when he lowered his voice dramatically and said,
"And keep always in mind, O Baahaabaa and friends, that the New England
Fur Company uses daily 35,000 rabbit pelts! Gentlemen, I thank you."

Pandemonium broke loose. Triplett was showered with congratulations.
Music and dancing followed, among others an amazing performance by a
sturdy youth, Zambao-Zambino (Young-Man-Proud-of-His-Waist-Line) who
rendered a solo by striking his distended anatomy with his clenched
fist, varying the tone by relaxing or tightening the abdominal muscles.
Whinney sang a very dreary arrangement of "Mandalay"--his one parlor
trick; Swank did an imitation of Elsie Janis's imitation of Ethel
Barrymore and I sang "The Wreck of the Julie Plante," an amusing ballad
describing the loss by drowning of an entire ship's company.