Put a little more wood on the fire, Kid; and
say, Bill, hand me that, won't you? Who's going to get a pail of water?"

All three of us were going to get a pail of water, of course! It was the
one thing in the world we wanted to do very much--get a pail of water!

But the raw materials--how they played on them! I regarded their
performance as a species of duet; and the raw materials, ranged in the
sand about the fire, were the keys. Frank touched this, Charley touched
that, and over the fire the music grew--perfectly stomach-ravishing!

We had bought with much care all, or nearly all the ordinary
cooking-utensils. These the usurpers scorned. Three or four gasoline
cans, transformed by a jack-knife into skillets, ovens, platters, etc.,
sufficed for these masters of their craft. The downright Greek
simplicity of their methods won me completely.

"This is indeed Art," thought I; "first, the elimination of the
non-essential, and then the virile, unerring directness, the seemingly
easy accomplishment resulting from effort long forgotten; and, above
all, the final, convincing delivery of the goods."

Out of the chaos of the raw material, beneath the touch of Charley's
wise hands, emerged a wondrous cosmos of biscuits, light as the heart of
a boy. And Frank, singing a French ditty, created wheat cakes. His
method struck me as poetic. He scorned the ordinary uninspired cook's
manner of turning the half-baked cake. One side being done, he waited
until the ditty reached a certain lilting upward leap in the refrain,
when, with a dexterous movement of the frying-pan, he tossed the cake
into the air, making it execute a joyful somersault, and catching it
with a sizzling _splat_ in the pan, just as the lilting measure ceased
abruptly.

Why, I could taste that song in the pancakes!

I wonder why domestic economy has so persistently overlooked the value
of song as an adjunct to cookery. _Gateaux a la chansonnette!_ Who
wouldn't eat them for breakfast?

At six in the evening we put off, Charley, the Kid and I manning the
power boat, Bill and Frank the skiff, which was towed by a thirty-foot
line. I had, during the day, transformed my unquestioned slavery into a
distinct advantage, having carefully impressed upon the Englishman the
honor I would do him by allowing him to become chief engineer of the
_Atom_. I carefully avoided the subject of cranking. I was tired
cranking. I felt that I had exhausted the possibilities of enjoymen