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"Perhaps I'll get used to it in time," Bob remarked, presently; "but it sure does give a fellow a nasty shock to hear that sound burst out close by your feet, knowing as you do what a bite from those fangs means." "Then it was a narrow squeak, was it?" asked Frank. "I guess I never want to be closer to a diamond-back than that," Bob admitted, with a shake of his head.
The greatest astonishment was excited by the "grand astoria terrapin," a developed species of diamond-back tortoise, whose exquisitely sculptured convex back, lurching awkwardly as it crawled, rose almost three feet above the ground; and the "new century turkey," which carried its beacon head and staring eyes as high as a tall man's hat.
Later spelled "terrapin," it meant the diamond-back, the esoteric little creature that spread the fame of the Chesapeake bay around the world and became an indispensable course on menus designed for the entertainment of royalty and the discriminating elect.
The fact remains that I have eaten one fried pyramid and countless stewed icicles, and the stewed icicles were finer than any diamond-back rat Confucius ever had served at a state banquet." "Where's Shakespeare to-night?" asked Confucius, seeing that the Baron was beginning to lose his temper, and wishing to avoid trouble by changing the subject. "Wasn't he invited, General?"
All unconscious of his treason Louis took me into the pantry and triumphantly showed me three jars bearing the Augustine label and the Philadelphia express tags! On another occasion a friend of The Major's, passing The Brunswick and observing some diamond-back shells in the window said, "Major, have you any real live terrapins?" "Live!" cried The Frenchman.
He was about as broad as he was long, and wore all sorts of big whiskers and black eyebrows. His heart was very bad. You never COULD tell where Texas Pete was goin' to jump next. He was a side-winder and a diamond-back and a little black rattlesnake all rolled into one.
I try to soften and placate her with the gift of trinkets, for there is enough Redskin in her to make her inordinately proud of anything with a bit of flash and glitter to it. But she is about as responsive to actual kindness as a diamond-back rattler would be, and some day, if she drives me too far, I'm going off at half-cock and blow that breed into mince-meat.
Course succeeded course, cooked with a delicate skill unknown to the world of to-day. The oysters, fresh, fat, luscious, were followed by diamond-back terrapin stew as a soup. Phil tasted it and whispered to his fair young hostess. "Miss Mary, what is this I'm eating?" "Don't you like it?" "I never expected to taste it on earth. I've only dreamed about it on high." "It's only terrapin stew.
"It's just because these plump little critters are so common," he remarked, with a smile of satisfaction, as he emptied the balance of the stew into his own pannikin. "If they cost four dollars each, now, and only the millionaires could buy 'em, you'd think they beat anything going." "Yes," said bookworm Owen, "that's the way it was with diamond-back terrapin.
In the dune-hammock the black bear, crab-hungry, awakes from his December sleep and claws the palmetto fruit; the bay lynx steals beachward; a dozen little deaths hatch from the diamond-back, alive; and the mean gray fox uncurls and scratches ticks, grinning, red-gummed, at the moon.
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