I had ordered wild duck as part of the dinner: and when it came to be
served he looked hard at his plate, and, without lifting his eyes,
slid from casual talk into his narrative again:
[Foe's Narrative Concluded]
"Wild duck--? good! Yes, we used to have wild duck on the island.
. . . There were lagoons on the east side, fairly teeming with them,
and we fixed up a decoy. I don't pretend that we fixed up an orange
salad like this, with curacao: but in the beginning we practised with
limes, and later on I invented one of sliced bananas, with a sort of
spirit I brewed from the fruit. Also we found bait in the pools, not
so much unlike the whitebait we've been eating--I used to frizzle it
in palm oil. And once I achieved turtle soup. . . . He was the only
fellow that, in two years, we ever managed to collar and lay on his
back; and the soup, after all was no great success. But turtle's
eggs. . . . I can tell you all about turtle's eggs. That dog had a
nose for them like a pig's for truffles.
"Don't be afraid, Roddy. In this sophisticated den of high living
and moderate thinking I'm not going to give you the Swiss Family
Robinson; though I could double no trumps and risk it on the author
of that yarn--whoever he may have been--if he had only dealt from a
single pack, which he didn't.
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