aw it
swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
by the river--and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
typewriter.

Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
at once christened it as "consomme a la maotsi"--and we can recommend
it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning--the temperature
below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!

"God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
come for?"

"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow.
No have got nothing!"

"No have got nothing! No have got nothing!" Mysterious words, what could
they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
sugar?

"The fellow's a swindler!" cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
that's all very well. "No have got nothing!" Ah, there lay the secret.
Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
towards him personally--but ... _could he d