Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/133

the half-decker he got cost him very little. He would not have touched that slowly growing fund in England for the sake of any pleasure in the world.

So he sailed her about those turquoise seas with careless skill, and explored the mangrove creeks where the coffee-coloured water is apt to make a man’s skin fester where it splashes, and made friends with the pearlers and with most of the many-coloured population of that place, which in an ancient and truthful jest is called Thirsty Island. Incidentally, it was here that he came of age, though he did not take much account of that at the time.