"In the morning time he did not turn up. B - -, just before
breakfast, went to his room and he wasn't there, but he noticed the
paw-paw was on the bed and that was all, so he thought the book-
keeper must have gone for a walk, being, as it were, a bit too
tender to have gone on the fly as yet. So he just told the store
clerk to tell the people to return him to the firm when they found
him straying around lost, and thought no more about it, being, as it
was, mail-day, and him busy.
"Well! Fortunately the steward boy put that paw-paw on the table
again for twelve o'clock chop. If it hadn't been for that, not a
living soul would have known the going of the book-keeper. For when
B - - cut it open, there, right inside it, were nine steel trouser-
buttons, a Waterbury watch, and the poor young fellow's keys. For
you see, instead of his digesting his dinner with that paw-paw, the
paw-paw took charge and digested him, dinner and all, and when B - -
interrupted it, it was just getting a grip on the steel things.
There's an awful lot of pepsine in a paw-paw, and if you hang, etc.,
etc."
I collapsed, feebly murmuring that it was very interesting, but sad
for the poor young fellow's friends.
"Not necessarily," said the old coaster. So he had the last word,
and never again will I attempt to alter the ways of the genuine old
coaster. What you have got to do with him is to be very thankful
you have had the honour of knowing him.
Still I think we do over-estimate the value of the papaw, although I
certainly did once myself hang the leg of a goat no mortal man could
have got tooth into, on to a papaw tree with a bit of string for the
night. In the morning it was clean gone, string and all; but
whether it was the pepsine, the papaine, or a purloining pagan that
was the cause of its departure there was no evidence to show. Yet I
am myself, as Hans Breitmann says, "still skebdigal" as to the
papaw, and I dare say you are too.
But I must forthwith stop writing about the Gold Coast, or I shall
go on telling you stories and wasting your time, not to mention the
danger of letting out those which would damage the nerves of the
cultured of temperate climes, such as those relating to the youth
who taught himself French from a six months' method book; of the man
who wore brass buttons; the moving story of three leeches and two
gentlemen; the doctor up a creek; and the reason why you should not
eat pork along here because all the natives have either got the
guinea-worm, or kraw-kraw or ulcers; and then the pigs go and - dear
me!
