Widow Twankey, ‘Reindeers hindeed! Hain’t no sich hanimals hin hall Hant-harctica. Them dratted reindeers honly hinhabitates
Harctic
hareas. Which there wasn’t no penguins neither, not a penguin hon hall that hisland. There was prions, and seahawks, and sea helephants come a-visiting; but they wasn’t no trouble, not they.’ Then he continued in his usual voice: ‘The gross valueof imports and exports in the two years I was there amounted to… guess, child!’ I refused to guess, so he told me that the correct answer was something over one million seven hundred thousand pounds sterling.
‘For I should have told you, little Gravey-spoons, that Desolation island has a harbour which is more or less ice-free for a month or two round Christmas every year. The whalers put in therethen. It isn’t every ship that can deal, like the
Larssen
can, with an unlimited quantity of whale; so when the smaller ships have more oil than they can manage comfortably and don’t want to go back to Norway yet – half the world away – they dump it in barrels on Desolation Island, in care of the Crown Agent, and get a chit from him for it. There are big store caves blasted out of the rock. Theoil tankers come to collect the stuff. Also, a Norwegian company had put a blubber-boiling plant on the island for the convenience of its smaller boats – three great metal cauldrons, each about twice the size of this room, and weighing I don’t know how many hundred tons. They must have been landed in sections and welded together on the spot; but that was before my time.
‘When those fellows cameashore to boil down their blubber, I always had a busy time. I had to watch that they didn’t pinch Government property or the oil belonging to other ships that I had in bond, or raid my house when my back was turned. I carried my revolver loose and loaded and hardly had time to sleep. But I was the sole representative of His Majesty, and he had given me unlimited power to make laws for the entireperiod of my stay, and to see that they were kept. After my first experience with a blubber party, which ended in a death and a fire, I issued an edict that henceforth Desolation Island was to be the driest as well as the coldest of His Majesty’s possessions. I couldn’t stop the brutes from boozing themselves silly aboard their own vessels in the harbour, but I saw to it that not a drop was landedon British soil. (Tough! you wouldn’t believe howtough these Norwegian whalingmen were. But their ships’ officers were tougher still and kept them under.)
‘One day a tanker put in and two unexpected visitors came off her. One of them, a tall fellow with a Guards’ Brigade moustache (here Papa Johnson made one up to show me, from his make-up box) and a quarrelsome sort of face (here Papa Johnsonmade the sort of face he meant) came up to me and said in superior tones (here Papa Johnson imitated them): “Mr Henry Johnson, the British Crown Agent, I believe? My name’s Morgan, Major Anthony Morgan of the Indian Army. I have come to live here with you. This is Professor Durnsford, who is on the staff of the New York Museum of Natural History,” and he pulled forward a harmless-looking littlefellow with a snubnose and the expression of a Pekinese. “We intend to do research work here.” He handed me an introductory letter from the Government of New Zealand. I was too busy with customs business to read it, so I put it into my pocket – you see I disliked the man at first sight and didn’t like having his company forced on me without a please or thank you – and I said: “Well, I can’t refuseyou, I suppose, if you have decided to dwell among me. There’s my house; it’s the only one on the island. Make yourselves at home while I attend to these papers. I’ll send your stuff ashore when I’ve examined it.”
‘Morgan flared up. “You will certainly do no such thing as to tamper with my personal luggage.”
‘I shrugged my shoulders and said:
Harctic
hareas. Which there wasn’t no penguins neither, not a penguin hon hall that hisland. There was prions, and seahawks, and sea helephants come a-visiting; but they wasn’t no trouble, not they.’ Then he continued in his usual voice: ‘The gross valueof imports and exports in the two years I was there amounted to… guess, child!’ I refused to guess, so he told me that the correct answer was something over one million seven hundred thousand pounds sterling.
‘For I should have told you, little Gravey-spoons, that Desolation island has a harbour which is more or less ice-free for a month or two round Christmas every year. The whalers put in therethen. It isn’t every ship that can deal, like the
Larssen
can, with an unlimited quantity of whale; so when the smaller ships have more oil than they can manage comfortably and don’t want to go back to Norway yet – half the world away – they dump it in barrels on Desolation Island, in care of the Crown Agent, and get a chit from him for it. There are big store caves blasted out of the rock. Theoil tankers come to collect the stuff. Also, a Norwegian company had put a blubber-boiling plant on the island for the convenience of its smaller boats – three great metal cauldrons, each about twice the size of this room, and weighing I don’t know how many hundred tons. They must have been landed in sections and welded together on the spot; but that was before my time.
‘When those fellows cameashore to boil down their blubber, I always had a busy time. I had to watch that they didn’t pinch Government property or the oil belonging to other ships that I had in bond, or raid my house when my back was turned. I carried my revolver loose and loaded and hardly had time to sleep. But I was the sole representative of His Majesty, and he had given me unlimited power to make laws for the entireperiod of my stay, and to see that they were kept. After my first experience with a blubber party, which ended in a death and a fire, I issued an edict that henceforth Desolation Island was to be the driest as well as the coldest of His Majesty’s possessions. I couldn’t stop the brutes from boozing themselves silly aboard their own vessels in the harbour, but I saw to it that not a drop was landedon British soil. (Tough! you wouldn’t believe howtough these Norwegian whalingmen were. But their ships’ officers were tougher still and kept them under.)
‘One day a tanker put in and two unexpected visitors came off her. One of them, a tall fellow with a Guards’ Brigade moustache (here Papa Johnson made one up to show me, from his make-up box) and a quarrelsome sort of face (here Papa Johnsonmade the sort of face he meant) came up to me and said in superior tones (here Papa Johnson imitated them): “Mr Henry Johnson, the British Crown Agent, I believe? My name’s Morgan, Major Anthony Morgan of the Indian Army. I have come to live here with you. This is Professor Durnsford, who is on the staff of the New York Museum of Natural History,” and he pulled forward a harmless-looking littlefellow with a snubnose and the expression of a Pekinese. “We intend to do research work here.” He handed me an introductory letter from the Government of New Zealand. I was too busy with customs business to read it, so I put it into my pocket – you see I disliked the man at first sight and didn’t like having his company forced on me without a please or thank you – and I said: “Well, I can’t refuseyou, I suppose, if you have decided to dwell among me. There’s my house; it’s the only one on the island. Make yourselves at home while I attend to these papers. I’ll send your stuff ashore when I’ve examined it.”
‘Morgan flared up. “You will certainly do no such thing as to tamper with my personal luggage.”
‘I shrugged my shoulders and said:
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