In Which I Am a Pirate

With my own hands I have trained that prize, Hiroshimi, to cook and to
serve; but only Providence could give Hiroshimi his super-humanly
disinterested calm. He fitted perfectly into the picture of our dream.
'Twas no ordinary log house in which we sat, indeed no house at all.
Beneath us rose and fell a stanch vessel, responsive to the long lift
of the southern seas. It was not a rustle of the leaves we heard
through the open windows, but the low ripple of waves along our
strakes came to our ears through the open ports. Hiroshimi did not
depart to the kitchen; but high aloft our lookout swept the sea for
sail that might offer us a prize.

If any say that this manner of illusion may not exist between two boys
and a man, I answer that we did not thus classify it. By the new
pleasure in my soul, by the new blood in my cheek, I swear we were
three boys together, and all in quest of adventure.

True, at times our speech smacked less of nautical and piratical
phrase, at times, indeed, halted. It is difficult for a
twelve-year-old pirate, exceeding hungry, to ask for a third helping
of grilled chicken in a voice at once stern and ingratiating.
Moreover, it is difficult for a discreet and law-abiding citizen, with
a full sense of duty, deliberately to aid and abet two youthful
runaways. But whenever illusion wavered, L'Olonnois saved the day by
resuming his stern scowl, even above a chicken-bone. His facility in
rolling speech I discovered to be, in part, attributable to a volume
which I saw protruding from his pocket. At my request he passed it to
me, and I saw its title; The Pirate's Own Book. I knew it well.
Indeed, I now arose, and passing to my bookshelves, drew down a
duplicate copy of that rare volume, recounting the deeds of the old
buccaneers. The eyes of L'Olonnois widened as I laid the two side by
side.