Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/89

Rh of articles, some of them rather heavy. This work was very laborious, and Larry and the other workers perspired freely under the tropical sun.

"Oh! but it's hot!" he said once, as he stopped to run the perspiration from his forehead with the side of his finger. "We don't catch anything like this in the States, at least not up North."

"This is nothing," answered Hobson. "Wait till we get down just to the north of the Philippine Islands, right in the China Sea; you'll find it hot enough to boil eggs in a dipper on deck, and you won't dare to go barefooted, for fear the hot tar will burn you up."

"I'll agree with Hobson on that," answered Luke Striker. "I once shipped to the Philippines, and we spent four weeks at Aparri, on the northeast coast of Luzon, the main island, and in Manila Bay, on the southwest coast, and, phew! but wasn't it a corker! We were in Manila Bay right in August, and a man didn't hardly dare to walk across the deck at midday for fear of getting sunstruck."

"If that's true, then I don't want much of Manila Bay," laughed Larry; and then they resumed their work with all the energy that was left in them, for Captain Ponsberry had promised them a holiday at