"Scarcely," he said. "There was no jug, only an empty meat can; and the water--well, the water was almost as thick, with mud, before the coffee was put in as afterward, and the men would scarcely have had patience to wait for the patent process. Poor beggars! Some of them had not had a drop past their lips for twenty-four hours--and been fighting, too." Nell listened, with her grave gray eyes fixed on his face. "How sorry you must have been to leave the army!" she said thoughtfully. "Does warfare seem so alluring?" he retorted, with a laugh. "But you're right; I was sorry to send in my papers, and I've been sorrier since the day I did it." Nell curled herself up in the bottom of the boat like a well-fed and contented cat, and Vernon, having washed the plates by the simple process of dragging them backward and forward through the water, stretched himself and felt in his pockets. He relinquished the search with a sigh of resignation, and Nell, hearing it, looked up. "Are you not going to smoke?" she asked. "Dick would have his pipe alight long before this; and, of course, I don't mind--if that is what you were waiting for. Why should I?" "Thanks; but, like an idiot, I've forgotten my pipe. I've got some tobacco and cigarette paper." "Then you are all right," she remarked. "Scarcely," he said carelessly. "This stupid mummy of an arm of mine prevents me rolling a cigarette, you see." "How stupid of me to forget that!" she said. "Give me the tobacco and the paper and let me try." He produced the necessary articles promptly; and showed her how to do it. "Not quite so much tobacco"--she had taken out enough for ten cigarettes, and spilled sufficient for another five--"and--er--if you could get it more equal along the paper. Like this--ah, thanks!" In showing her, his fingers got "mixed" with hers, but Nell seemed too absorbed in her novel experiment to notice the fact. "Like that? Rather like a miniature sausage, isn't it? And it will all come undone when I let go of it," she added apprehensively. "If you'll be so good as just to wet the edge with your lips," he said, in a matter-of-fact way. She looked at him, and a faint dash of color came into her face. "You won't like to smoke it afterward," she said coolly. He stared at her, then smiled. "Try me!" he said succinctly. She gave a little shrug of the shoulders, moistened the cigarette in the usual way, and handed it to him gravely. "I'll try to make the next better," she said. "I suppose you will want another?" "I'm afraid I shall want more than you will be inclined to make," he said, "and I shouldn't like to trespass on your good nature." "Oh, it's not very hard work making cigarettes," she said. "I'd better set about the next at once. How is that?" and she held up the production for inspection. "Simply perfect," he said. "You would amass a fortune out in the East as a cigarette maker." She looked up at him, beyond him, wistfully.