- end_line
- 12828
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 12801
- text
- “I am an old Turk,” he replied, drawing the flat blade of his knife
between his teeth, thereby producing a whetting, grating sound.
“Let him alone, let him alone, men,” said Jack Chase. “Only keep off
the tail of a rattlesnake, and he’ll not rattle.”
“Look out he don’t bite, though,” said Priming, snapping his teeth; and
with that he rolled off, growling as he went.
Though I did my best to carry off my vexation with an air of
indifference, need I say how I cursed my jacket, that it thus seemed
the means of fastening on me the murder of one of my shipmates, and the
probable murder of two more. For, had it not been for my jacket,
doubtless, I had yet been a member of my old mess, and so have escaped
making the luckless odd number among my present companions.
All I could say in private to Priming had no effect; though I often
took him aside, to convince him of the philosophical impossibility of
my having been accessary to the misfortunes of Baldy, the buried sailor
in Rio, and Shenly. But Priming knew better; nothing could move him;
and he ever afterward eyed me as virtuous citizens do some notorious
underhand villain going unhung of justice.
Jacket! jacket! thou hast much to answer for, jacket!
- title
- Chunk 2