What do you say ?" "I can't deny that I like you," I said, "and I bet you've been to a lot of places." "France, Russia, South America, Panama and Montclair, New Jersey," he said, "and Bronx Park." Gee, I didn't know how to take him, he was so funny.
"Ever been up in an airplane ?" he said.
"Cracky, I'd like to," I told him.
"I went from Paris to the Channel in an airplane," he said.
Then he gave me a crack on the back and he put his arm around my shoulder awful nice and friendly like, and it made me kind of proud because I knew him.
"Now, you listen here," he said, "I'm in a dickens of a fix.

You live in Bridgeboro; do you know Jake Holden ?" "Sure I know him, he's a fisherman," I said; "the very same night your father told us we could use this boat I saw him, and the next day I went to try to find him for a certain reason, and he was gone away down the bay after fish.

He taught me how to fry eels." "Get out," he said, "really ?" "Honest, he did," I told him.
"Well, some day I'll show you how to cook bear's meat.

There's something you don't know." "Did you ever cook bear's meat ?" I asked him.
"Surest thing you know," he said; "black bears, gray bears, grisly bears--" "Jiminy," I said.
Then he went on and this is what he told me, keeping his arm around my shoulder and every minute or so listening and looking out over the water.

"Here's something you didn't know," he said.