Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/171

Rh appearance we might have been taken for tax- gatherers. We drew each other, the boatmen, parts of the vessel, occasionally going ashore for a bit of landscape. C.K. was cook, made the coffee and boiled the eggs for breakfast, and the potatoes in their jackets for dinner. One day we went ashore at Gillingham, and having sketched some time, lunched at the “Ship Inn,” for we were a little tired of continual salt junk. There was nothing to be had but pork chops, which Keene did not care for, and managed but about half a one. By that time I had demolished the remainder, and feeling that the inn people might feel their cooking had been slighted, wdien they beheld what scant justice had been done to it by one of us, I coolly divided the picked bones into equal shares and placed one lot on Keene’s plate. He was not angry, only saying with his sad smile, “You are a fellow!” This “You are a fellow” was an exclamation of surprise or mild reproof often used by Keene. In the earlier days of our friendship he asked me “if I smoked dottles?” “No!” “You are a fellow!” For the sake of the uninitiated who don’t know what “dottles” are, it may be explained that when a pipe is smoked out there is a portion left at the bottom of the bowl, dark and damp from the nicotine which has drained through the tobacco already consumed. Rh