"I'm sick of this exhibition breakfast idea," he said. "I vote we eat as we go."
"Well, let's do a proper send-off, for luck," Mark said. "They're really a friendly lot, and we might as well give 'em their money's worth."
So, with a banging of the big gong astern, the little Sham-Poo got under way, her square sail creaking as it went up. One or two of the Chinese on the bank shrieked "Yang-k'wei-tse!" (foreign devil!) but most of them grinned amiably enough. Some of the children ran down the bank a little way, and then the whole group was lost to sight around a bend. Mark and Alan were off on another day of their adventure.
They still had no intention of leaving the comparative safety and certainty of the boat to seek favor of authority ashore in any of the huddled towns they passed.
"No more dealings with the heathen Chinee," Mark had said. "They may be all right if you know 'em—but we don't. At least this hollow bamboo our castle is, and I mean to stick by it."
This remark was made during what the boys were pleased to call dinner-time. The dismal
