e was doing, put it endways into his mouth,
and took a bite. A shout of laughter went up from the men. They had
been furtively watching him, on the look-out for this. Harry reddened
with anger, then tried to look dignified and indifferent.

"Never mind, mister," cried Wayne, reassuringly. "You ain't the first
by a long chalk who has to learn how to eat green mealies. Half these
chaps grinning here did just the same thing at first. Why, Robertson
there, alongside you, bit the mealie cob clean in half, and then said it
seemed rather dry sort of forage--eh, Robertson?"

"That's just a fact, Wayne," answered the man referred to, a tall,
good-humoured young mechanic, seated next to Gerard, and with whom the
latter had already been having some conversation.

The incident led to a good deal of chaff and bantering recrimination
among the men themselves, during the progress of which Harry managed to
smooth down his ruffled feelings.

Supper over, a move was made outside. Some of the men started off for
the town to amuse themselves for the evening, while the others remained
quietly at home, smoking their pipes in the verandah. After the noise
and steamy heat of the dining-room, this was an example our two friends
were not sorry to follow.

"Well, Harry, you can have the bedstead; I'll take the floor," said
Gerard, as a couple of hours later they found themselves in possession
of their room. "I feel like sleeping anywhere, I'm so tired."

"I don't," grumbled the other, on whom the dearth of comfort, together
with the uncongeniality of the position, was beginning to tell. "I feel
more inclined to take the first ship home again than to do anything
else, I can tell you."

"Pooh, man, don't be so easily put off! I suppose that's what most
fellows think at first, though."

Gerard soon dropped off to sleep. Tired as he was, however, and with
every disposition to adapt himself to circumstances, in less than two
hours he awoke. The heat of the room, notwithstanding that the window
was wide open, was suffocating, and, added to this, he awoke with the
sensation of being devoured alive. A subdued groan from his companion,
who was tossing restlessly upon his bed, caught his ear.

"Hallo, Harry! what's the row?"

"Ugh! I was wondering how long you would stand it. I'm being eaten--
dragged out of bed. These infernal mosquitoes!"

That was at the bottom of the mischief, then. In the silence following
on his compani