Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/104

74 everything. Anything over the actual expenses is profit for him. He does not, however, stint us in any way, gives us a generous table, and has been kind enough to come to me several times to ask if I am satisfied and to consult my taste in the feeding line, so that I may have what I please. Then the Chinese cooks and I are friends—wise me! They are all grins if I poke my head into their galley and say, " Well, Cookie, you got 'em something nicey for me to-day?" "Alle what you likee," they answer—for be it remembered they are my fellow-subjects from Singapore. The crew get about thirty shillings a month.

The Chinese cooks often make me recall an old picture in Punch or some such paper of a stout old policeman with an astounded face, who is gazing down into an area after signalling to the cook for his daily love-token of chop, or ping," whatever that may be, and is slit-eyed, pig-tailed, grinning Chinaman with "Me am Cookie."

I told these ones that in my family we had a Chinese cook for many, many years, called " I Sing," and that we adored him. He had left his wife in China, and when we frequently suggested that she might have gone off with some other man he always said cheerfully, " Never mind, me getee plenty more."

Going down the passage to my cabin one day, I came on one of the Malay sailor boys on his knees at some one's cabin door, peering through the keyhole. My boot toe caught him exactly on the end of his tail, and you should have seen that boy clap his hand behind and go down the passage a yard at a time. I did not tell, however, and he is duly grateful, if sickly smiles mean gratitude. But, when I see him sitting on the lower deck, it always seems to me he sits sideways; I wonder why?