o me, "It's a mystery
More deep than words can utter;
Whatever we do, here's me an' you,
Us both as thin as Irish stoo,
While he's as fat as butter."

'But late one night we wakes in fright
To see by a pale blue flare,
That cook has got in a phantom pot
A big plum-duff an' a rump-steak hot,
And the guzzlin' wizard is eatin' the lot,
On top of the iceberg bare.'

'There's a verse left out here,' said Bill, stopping the song, 'owin' to
the difficulty of explainin' exactly what happened, when me and Sam
discovered the deceitful nature of that cook. The next verse is as
follows--

'Now Sam an' me can never agree
What happened to Curry and Rice.
The whole affair is shrouded in doubt,
For the night was dark and the flare went out,
And all we heard was a startled shout,
Though I think meself, in the subsequent rout,
That us bein' thin, an' him bein' stout,
In the middle of pushin' an' shovin' about,
He--MUST HAVE FELL OFF THE ICE.'

'That won't do, you know,' began the Puddin', but Sam said hurriedly,
'It was very dark, and there's no sayin' at this date what happened.'

'Yes there is,' said the Puddin', 'for I had my eye on the whole affair,
and it's my belief that if he hadn't been so round you'd have never
rolled him off the iceberg, for you was both singin' out "Yo heave Ho"
for half an hour, an' him trying to hold on to Bill's beard.'

[Illustration]

'In the haste of the moment,' said Bill, 'he may have got a bit of a
shove, for the ice bein' slippy, and us bein' justly enraged, and him
bein' as round as a barrel, he may, as I said, have been too fat to save
himself from rollin' off the iceberg. The point, however, is immaterial
to our story, which concerns this Puddin'; and this Puddin',' said Bill
patting him on the basin, 'was the very Puddin' that Curry and Rice
invented on the iceberg.'

'He must have been a very clever cook,' said Bunyip.

'He was, poor feller, he was,' said Bill, greatly affected. 'For plum
duff or Irish stoo there wasn't his equal in the land. But enough of
these sad subjects. Pausin' only to explain that me an' Sam got off the
iceberg on a homeward bound chicken coop, landed on Tierra del Fuego,
walked to Valparaiso, and so got home, I will proceed to enliven the
occasion with "The Ballad of the Bo'sun's Bride".'

And without more ado, Bill, who had one of those beef-and-thunder
voices, roared out--

'Ho, aboard the _Salt J