"What for, sir? Why, to keep till they gets tender. Them there Errubs of the desert gets so sun-tanned that they are as tough as string; so hard, you know, that they wouldn't even agree with a croc. Yo-hoy! Haul oh, and here she comes!" added the man, in a low musical bass voice to himself, as he kept on dragging at the soft Manilla rope. "I say, Burnett," said Poole seriously, "don't you think we'd better get pencil and paper and put all this down--Natural History Notes by Peter Winks, Head Carpenter of the Schooner _Teal_?" "Nay, nay, sir, don't you do that. Stick to fact. That's what I don't like in people as writes books about travel. They do paint it up so, and lay it on so thick that the stuff cracks, comes off, and don't look nat'ral." "Then you wouldn't put down about that little bird that comes hippity-hop and looks at the crocodile's eyes?" "What, sir! Why, that's the best part of it. That's the crumb of the whole business." "Oh, I see," said Fitz. "Then that's a fact?" "To be sure, sir. He's larnt it from old experience. I dare say he's seen lots go down through the croc turning them big jaws of his into a bird-trap and shutting them up sudden, when of course there aren't no more bird. But that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, and the birds know better now, and wait till it's quite safe before they begin." "Begin what?" said Fitz sharply. "Well, sir," said the carpenter, as he hauled away, "that's what I want to tell you, only you keep on interrupting me so." Fitz closed his teeth with a snap. "Go on, Chips," he said. "I'll be mute as a fish." "Well, sir, as I said afore, you young gents can believe it or you can let it alone: that there little bird, or them little birds, for there's thousands of them, just the same as there is crocodiles, and they are all friendly together, I suppose because crocs is like birds in one thing--they makes nests and lays eggs, and the birds, as I'm telling of you, does this as reg'lar as clockwork. When the croc's had his dinner and gone to sleep with his front-door wide open, the little chap comes hopping and peeping along close round the edge, and then gets his own living by picking the crocodile's teeth." "Ha-ha!" laughed Fitz. "'Pon my word, Poole, I should like to put this down." "Oh, it don't want no putting down, sir; it's a fact; a cracker turns mouldy and drops off." "Well, won't this go bad?" cried Fitz, laughing.