"When Mike asked for the privilege of eating my stringy old carcass, he was doing me the greatest honor that he knew of - by the only rules he knows.  What he had 'learned at his mother's knee,' so to speak.  Do you savvy that?  You heard his tone of voice, you saw his manner.  He was paying me his highest compliment - and asking of me a boon.  You see?  Never mind what they think of such things in Kansas ; Mike uses the values taught him on Mars."