ng again, Dick," cried the lad. "Chinese
indeed! Why we're not going to China."

"'Course we aint, sir, but the Chinees swarm in the place we're going
to. I ant chaffing now; this here's all true--as true as that the chaps
all wears a dagger sort of a thing with a crooked handle, and calls it a
crease."

"Yes, I know they all wear the kris," said the lad.

"Yes, sir, and a plaid kilt, just like a Scotchman."

"What?"

"A plaid kilt, like a Scotchman, sir, and they calls it a say rong; and
the big swell princes has it made of silk, and the common folks of
cotton."

"Is this gammon, Dick?"

"Not a bit on it, sir. They wears that crease stuck in it; and they
carries spears--limbings they calls 'em--and they can throw 'em a
wonderful way."

"They poison the kris, don't they, Dick?"

"No, sir, I don't think they do," said the sailor. "I asked one man out
there if they didn't; and he pulls his'n out of its sheath, and it was
all dingy like, and as sharp as a razor, and he says in his barbarous
lingo, as a man put into English for me, as his knife would kill a man
without poison."

"What sort of wild beasts are there, Dick?"

"Tigers, sir."

"Honour bright, Dick?"

"Honour bright, sir; lots on 'em. They feeds 'em on Chinees."

"Feed them on Chinese, Dick?"

"Well sir, the tigers help theirselves to the coolies when they're at
work."

"Anything else, Dick?"

"Lor, bless you! yes, sir; there's elephants."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure, sir. I've seen 'em, heaps o' times; and rhinosseress, and
hippypotimies, and foreign birds, and snakes."

"Are there snakes, Dick?"

"Are there snakes! He says, are there snakes?" said Dick,
apostrophising the sea. "Why the last time as ever I was there, they
caught a boa-constrictor as was--"

"Don't make him too long, Dick," said the boy laughing.

"I won't make him too long," said the sailor solemnly. "Let's see, sir;
this here ship's 'bout hundred and fifty foot long."

"Yes, Dick, but the boa-constrictor was longer than that," said the lad,
laughing.

"I won't go to deceive you, Mister Roberts," said Dick, "no more than I
did when I was learning you how to knot and splice. That there
boa-constrictor was quite a hundred foot long."

"Get out!"

"Well, say fifty, sir."

"No, nor yet fifty, Dick."

"Well, sir, not to zaggerate about such things, if that there sarpent as
I see with my own eyes--"

"Why you couldn't see it with anybody else's, Dick.