"Thank you, Mr Herrick. You need not be so fond of correcting me." I made a deprecatory gesture. "I should have remembered directly that Captain Thwaites was ashore." "Beg pardon, sir," said Barkins, touching his cap. "Well, Mr Barkins." "I hope you will not send any marines with us." "And pray why, sir?" "We should have to be looking after them, sir, as much as they would be looking after us." "Mr Barkins, allow me to assure you, sir, that the dishipline of the marines on board this ship is above reproach." "Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I only thought that, after being on board the ship so long, sir, they might be tempted, sir." "I hope that the men of Her Majesty's gunboat _Teaser_ are above all temptations, Mr Barkins," said the lieutenant harshly. "There, upon second thoughts, I will not send a guard. You can go." The oars dropped with a splash on either side, and away we went among the hundreds of native boats of all kinds going up and down the river, and onward toward the crowded city, with its pagodas, towers, and ornamental gateways glittering in the morning sunshine, and looking wonderfully attractive to us prisoners, out for the day. "Don't speak aloud," I whispered to Smith, who was gathering himself up for an oration respecting the first lieutenant's tyranny. "Why not?" "Because the men are listening, and one of 'em may report what you say." "He'd better," said Smith defiantly. "I'm not afraid to speak. It was all out of his niggling meddlesomeness, so as to show off before the men." But all the same he spoke in a low voice that could only be heard by our companion who held the lines. "There, never mind all that bother," cried Barkins. "I say, how would you like to live in one of those house-boats?" "I call it pretty good cheek of the pigtailed humbugs to set up house-boats," cried Smith. "They imitate us in everything." "And we don't imitate them in anything, eh?" said Barkins. "Hi! look out, old Chin-chin, or we shall run you down," he shouted to a man in a sampan. "My! what a hat!" cried Smith. "Why, it would do for an umbrella. Port, Barkins." "All right; I won't sink him. Pull away, my lads." "I say," I cried, as we rowed by an enormous junk, with high poop and stern painted with scarlet and gold dragons, whose eyes served for hawseholes; "think she's a pirate?" "No," said Barkins, giving a look up at the clumsy rig, with the huge matting-sails; "it's a tea-boat." As she glided away from us, with her crew collected astern, to climb up and watch us, grinning and making derisive gestures, Barkins suddenly swung round the telescope, slipped the strap over his head, adjusted it to the proper focus, as marked by a line scratched with the point of a penknife, and raised it to his eye, when, to my astonishment, I saw all the Chinamen drop down out of sight. "Yes, she's a tea-boat," said Double B decisively, "and heavily laden. I wish she had pirates on board."