"No catchee rain down there--savee?" pointed out Jukes. "Suppose all'ee
same fine weather, one piecie coolie-man come topside," he pursued,
warming up imaginatively. "Make so--Phooooo!" He expanded his chest and
blew out his cheeks. "Savee, John? Breathe--fresh air. Good. Eh? Washee
him piecie pants, chow-chow top-side--see, John?"

With his mouth and hands he made exuberant motions of eating rice and
washing clothes; and the Chinaman, who concealed his distrust of this
pantomime under a collected demeanour tinged by a gentle and refined
melancholy, glanced out of his almond eyes from Jukes to the hatch and
back again. "Velly good," he murmured, in a disconsolate undertone, and
hastened smoothly along the decks, dodging obstacles in his course. He
disappeared, ducking low under a sling of ten dirty gunny-bags full of
some costly merchandise and exhaling a repulsive smell.

Captain MacWhirr meantime had gone on the bridge, and into the
chart-room, where a letter, commenced two days before, awaited
termination. These long letters began with the words, "My darling wife,"
and the steward, between the scrubbing of the floors and the dusting
of chronometer-boxes, snatched at every opportunity to read them. They
interested him much more than they possibly could the woman for whose
eye they were intended; and this for the reason that they related in
minute detail each successive trip of the Nan-Shan.

Her master, faithful to facts, which alone his consciousness reflected,
would set them down with painstaking care upon many pages. The house
in a northern suburb to which these pages were addressed had a bit of
garden before the bow-windows, a deep porch of good appearance,
coloured glass with imitation lead frame in the front door. He paid
five-and-forty pounds a year for it, and did not think the rent too