And at this moment the mate, two-legging it along the deck from for'ard
in the direction of the bottle stored between the yam sacks, called,
"Jerry," in a remarkably husky voice. Jerry flattened his filbert-shaped
ears and wagged his tail in acknowledgment, but advertised his intention
of continuing to stalk his enemy. And at sound of the mate's voice the
wild-dog flung quick-opened eyes in Jerry's direction and flashed into
his burrow, where he immediately turned around, thrust his head out with
a show of teeth, and snarled triumphant defiance.
Baulked of his quarry by the inconsiderateness of the mate, Jerry trotted
back to the head of the companion to wait for Skipper. But Borckman,
whose brain was well a-crawl by virtue of the many nips, clung to a petty
idea after the fashion of drunken men. Twice again, imperatively, he
called Jerry to him, and twice again, with flattened ears of gentleness
and wagging tail, Jerry good-naturedly expressed his disinclination.
Next, he yearned his head over the coming and into the cabin after
Skipper.
Borckman remembered his first idea and continued to the bottle, which he
generously inverted skyward. But the second idea, petty as it was,
persisted; and, after swaying and mumbling to himself for a time, after
unseeingly making believe to study the crisp fresh breeze that filled the
_Arangi's_ sails and slanted her deck, and, after sillily attempting on
the helmsman to portray eagle-like vigilance in his drink-swimming eyes,
he lurched amidships toward Jerry.
Jerry's first intimation of Borckman's arrival was a cruel and painful
clutch on his flank and groin that made him cry out in pain and whirl
around. Next, as the mate had seen Skipper do in play, Jerry had his
jowls seized in a tooth-clattering shake that was absolutely different
from the Skipper's rough love-shake. His head and body were shaken, his
teeth clattered painfully, and with the roughest of roughness he was
flung part way down the slippery slope of deck.
Now Jerry was a gentleman. All the soul of courtesy was in him, for
equals and superiors. After all, even in an inferior like the wild-dog,
he did not consciously press an advantage very far--never extremely far.
In his stalking and rushing of the wild-dog, he had been more sound and
fury than an overbearing bully. But with a superior, with a two-legged
white-god like Borckman, there was more a demand upon his control,
restraint, and inhibition of primitive promptings. He did not want to
play with the mate a game that he ecstatically played with Skipper,
because he had experienced no similar liking for the mate, two-legged
white-god that he was.
And still Jerry was all gentleness. He came back in a feeble imitation
rush of the whole-hearted rush that he had learned to make on Skipper. He
was, in truth, acting, play-acting, attempting to do what he had no heart-
prompting to do. He made believe to play, and uttered simulated growls
that failed of the verity of simulation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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