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To-day they have been fishing for albatrosses. A few minutes after they caught the first one its carcase was flung overboard. Mr. Pike studied it through his sea-glasses, and I heard him grit his teeth when he made certain that it was not the mere feathers and skin but the entire carcass. They had taken only its wing- bones to make into pipe-stems.
"But even if the water goes out with a rush, it can't tear a tree like this one up by the roots; can it?" asked Jack, pointing to where the cables of the boats had been secured as strongly as possible. "That's so," replied the scout master; "but then, think of the ropes, and what a terrible strain would come on them. I'm afraid both would snap like pipe-stems.
And when once the useless trees here are cut down, we will not stay here, but go and live in Trieste. We will plant the whole island with 'Prunus mehaleb' you know they make Turkish pipe-stems from it.
There was a sort of long, wide, low sofa, without any arms or legs, and a table that was like a box, with another box in front of it for you to sit down on when you worked, and on the table were all sorts of tiny little tools awls and brads they looked like and pipe-stems and broken bowls of pipes and mouthpieces, for our rescued Chinaman was a pipe-mender by trade.
Some of yer 'as made 'im fast that day. Much thanks yer got for it. Ain't 'ee a-drivin' yer wusse'n ever?... Let 'im slip overboard.... Vy not? It would 'ave been less trouble. Vy not?" He advanced confidentially, backed away with great effect; he whispered, he screamed, waved his miserable arms no thicker than pipe-stems stretched his lean neck spluttered squinted.
He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to his tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
Here were boiling, sputtering mud pots and steam vents building up and exhausting through mud pipe-stems, rising a foot or two above the springs. Here was a shelter or two of sun-warped boards constructed by those who come here crippled with rheumatism and are supposed to depart, cured. Here we saw signs of a wagon track driven toward Calexico, the border town directly north of the lake.
I was allers handy with tools, and by good luck I'd come off with two jack-knives and a loose awl in my jacket-pocket, so I could beat 'em all at whittlin'; and I made figgers on their bows an' pipe-stems, of things they never see, roosters, and horses, Miss Buel's old sleigh, and the Albany stage, driver'n' all, and our yoke of oxen a-ploughin', till nothin' would serve them but I should have a house o' my own, and be married to their king's daughter; so I did.
We laughed heartily at this proceeding, and made them understand, by signs, that it was much easier to strangle ourselves with these balls than with pipe-stems. At this they laughed too, but told us that they had most positive orders to prevent us in every possible way from committing suicide.
Then the milker said he would like to try too; to be sure, it was scarcely worth while to try falls with a walking-stick, with legs like pipe-stems and calves like fly-specks. With his brown hairy arms he grasped Uli as if he would pull him apart like an old rag. But Uli held his ground and the milker made no headway.
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