I cried . `` Were you shipwrecked ? '' `` Nay , mate , '' said he ; `` marooned . '' I had heard the word , and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers , in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island . `` Marooned three years agone , '' he continued , `` and lived on goats since then , and berries , and oysters . Wherever a man is , says I , a man can do for himself . But , mate , my heart is sore for Christian diet . You might n't happen to have a piece of cheese about you , now ? No ? Well , many 's the long night I 've dreamed of cheese -- toasted , mostly -- and woke up again , and here I were . '' `` If ever I can get aboard again , '' said I , `` you shall have cheese by the stone . '' All this time he had been feeling the stuff of my jacket , smoothing my hands , looking at my boots , and generally , in the intervals of his speech , showing a childish pleasure in the presence of a fellow creature . But at my last words he perked up into a kind of startled slyness . `` If ever you can get aboard again , says you ? '' he repeated . `` Why , now , who 's to hinder you ? '' `` Not you , I know , '' was my reply . `` And right you was , '' he cried . `` Now you -- what do you call yourself , mate ? '' `` Jim , '' I told him .
`` Jim , XXXXX , '' says he , quite pleased apparently .
Christian Jim boots buccaneers goats left mate night right years