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"Yep; but I ain't goin' to tell ye nothin' till ye give me somethin' to eat." She cast ravenous eyes on the small bundles Lem was placing on the table. "I'll give ye a piece of bread an' 'lasses," was the grudging answer. "And mind ye, I wouldn't do that but I want to hear what ye say 'bout Flea." Avidly the woman ate the thick slice of bread and treacle, offering a bit now and then to the cat.
Why, that five miles would only be a "flea bite," as Thad declared, to them; and they really needed the exercise, after being cooped up so long aboard the little old Tramp, Bunny saw them depart with considerable emotion.
Upon that, Noorna ran to him, and while they searched together for the flea, Baba Mustapha fidgeted and worried in his seat, lurching to the right and to the left, muttering curses; and it was evident he too was persecuted, and there was no peace on the roof of that palace, but pinching and howling and stretching of limbs, and curses snarled in the throat and imprecations on the head of the tormenting flea.
The little boy laughed disdainfully, thinking his question satisfactorily answered. "I guess those ole Rebels couldn't whipped a flea! They didn't know how to fight any at all, did they, Grandpa?" "Oh, yes, they did!" "What?" The boy was astounded. "Weren't they all just reg'lar ole cowards, Grandpa?" "No," said the grandfather. "They were pretty fine soldiers." "They were?
"Cops and prison keepers and bondsmen and under sheriffs, and all kinds of crooked petty officials. I should worry!" "Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum," quoted Miss Wiggin reminiscently. "A flea has to be a flea," continued Tutt. "He, or it, can't be anything else, but Hogan doesn't have to be a lawyer.
This, of course, brought us up, and we had only to "ease larboard oars; pull round starboard!" and go aboard the Alert, with something very like a flea in the ear. There was a light land-breeze all night, and the ship did not come to anchor until the next morning.
She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.
Well, there have been many other benevolent and economical schemes for keeping your cake after you have eaten it, for skinning a flint, and boiling a flea down for its tallow and glue, and this one of cheap art may just go its way with the others. Yet to my mind real art is cheap, even at the price that must be paid for it.
S'pose you could cultivate a flea up to the size of a man, and keep his natural smartness a-growing and a-growing right along up, bigger and bigger, and keener and keener, in the same proportion where'd the human race be, do you reckon? That flea would be President of the United States, and you couldn't any more prevent it than you can prevent lightning."
But take a sup o' this whisky, while you swear wid your hand on your chest, 'Amin' to the words o' Tim Macavoy." Beside Macavoy, Pierre, the notorious, was a child in height. Up to the time of the half-breed's coming the Irishman had been the most outstanding man at Fort O'Angel, and was sure of a good-natured homage, acknowledged by him with a jovial tyranny. Pierre put a flea in his ear.
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