“I always mean what I say,” continued Mat; “I’ve got that much good about me, if I haven’t got no more. Me and my scalp parted company years ago. I’m here, on a bridge in London, talking to a young chap of the name of Zack. My scalp’s on the top of a high pole in some Indian village, anywhere you like about the Amazon country. If there’s any puffs of wind going there, like there is here, it’s rattling just now, like a bit of dry parchment; and all my hair’s a flip-flapping about like a horse’s tail, when the flies is in season. I don’t know nothing more about my scalp or my hair than that. If you don’t believe me, just lay hold of my hat, and I’ll show you--” “No, thank you!” exclaimed Zack, recoiling from the offered hat. “I don’t want to see it. But how the deuce do you manage without a scalp?--I never heard of such a thing before in my life--how is it you’re not dead? eh?” “It takes a deal more to kill a tough man than you London chaps think,” said Mat. “I was found before my head got cool, and plastered over with leaves and ointment. They’d left a bit of scalp at the back, being in rather too great a hurry to do their work as handily as usual; and a new skin growed over, after a little--a babyish sort of skin, that wasn’t half thick enough, and wouldn’t bear no new crop of hair. So I had to eke out and keep my head comfortable with an old yellow handkercher; which I always wore till I got to San Francisco, on my way back here. I met with a priest at San Francisco, who told me that I should look a little less like a savage, if I wore a skull-cap like his, instead of a handkercher, when I got back into what he called the civilized world. So I took his advice, and bought this cap. I suppose it looks better than my old yellow handkercher; but it ain’t half as comfortable.” “But how did you lose your scalp?” asked Zack--“tell us all about it. Upon my life, you’re the most interesting fellow I ever met with! And, I say, let’s walk about, while we talk. I feel steadier on my legs now; and it’s so infernally cold standing here.” “Which way can we soonest get out of this muck of houses and streets?” asked Mat, surveying the London view around him with an expression of grim disgust. “There ain’t no room, even on this bridge, for the wind to blow fairly over a man. I’d just as soon be smothered up in a bed, as smothered up in smoke and stink here.” “What a delightful fellow you are! so entirely out of the common way! Steady, my dear friend. The grog’s not quite out of my head yet; and I find I’ve got the hiccups. Here’s my way home, and your way into the fresh air, if you really want it. Come along; and tell me how you lost your scalp.” “There ain’t nothing particular to tell. What’s your name again?” “Zack.” “Well, Zack, I was out on the tramp, dodging about after any game that turned up, on the banks of the Amazon--” “Amazon? what’s that? a woman? or a place?” “Did you ever hear of South America?”