It was very well cooked, and besides had a bit of salt fish of some sort on the top of the bowl, which we smelt at intervals, being too small to bite, so as to make the main contents of the dish more appetising. "Not bad," commented Ned, after taking a preliminary mouthful of it for a taste, delving out the rice with his fingers, no spoon or fork being provided, and the chopsticks _a la Chinoise_ furnished with the bowl being useless to us from our not being accustomed to their proper manipulation. "Better served up, too, than we ever got on board!" "Yes; I've tasted worse," said I. "They've cut us rather short with the fish, though, Ned. I think they might have served out enough for a fellow to put his teeth through." "Perhaps the old chap can't afford it, you know, Jack; and yet, he doesn't look badly off. That hat of his would fetch something in an old curio shop, and so would his breeches too. By Jove, they're big and baggy enough for a Dutchman twice his size." At this we both laughed, whereupon the old chap, thinking we did so in high appreciation of his viands, smiled and nodded, patting his fat stomach and saying in his guttural tones, "Bono, Johnny, goot--goot!" "By Jove!" exclaimed Ned, quite startled. "You speak English?" "Mi one piecee can do," replied the other, with a broader smile that made him look quite venerable, the deceitful old wretch! "No goodee number one chop!" "Oh, you can speak it well enough," replied Ned, as our friend said this in "Pijin English," implying that although he could manage a little of our language he was not a first-rater at it. "What wantchee can do, my one two?" Ned pointed at the same time towards me, and then indicated himself, requesting in this idiotic jargon to be informed of our fate. "Yellow hat's" reply was not of a reassuring character, although he uttered no word. What he did was, to draw the forefinger of his dirty hand across his throat in the most unpleasant manner. Ned shuddered at this; and, I confess, so did I. Seeing the effect his gesture had produced, the old chap, smiling affably, proceeded to justify the extreme course he had suggested. "Yang-kei-tze catchee one Chinaman, one piecee shootee chop chop," he argued, on the retaliatory principle, which, of course, held good in war, although no comfort to us at the moment. "Chinaman one piecee catchee Yang-kei-tze, mi takee Pekin." "And what will be done with us there?" The old scoundrel answered this question in the same mode as before; his action being if possible even more expressive. "I say, Ned, show him a dollar or two," I said, not liking his humbly suggestive way of stating that we were going to be taken to Pekin and there beheaded--at least that was what I gathered from the conversation. "Perhaps he'll be open to silver reason if we argue on the other side of the question?"