"I'm afraid I shall have to cook," she said. "Dick generally does it, but you've only one hand. There's one fish;" as she cut it open skillfully. "How many can you eat?"
"Two—three dozen," he said gravely.
She laughed, and placed three of the silver mackerel in the frying pan.
"Now don't, please, don't say that you haven't a match!" she said, half aghast with dread.
He took his silver match box from his pocket, and was on the point of handing it to her. Then he remembered the coronet engraved on it, and holding it against his side, managed to strike a light and ignite the spirit.
"Of course, you have to pretend that you don't mind the smell of cooking fish; but it really isn't so bad when one is hungry," she said, as the pan began to hiss and the fish to brown.
"There's salt and pepper somewhere," she remarked. "You put them on while the fish is cooking; it is half the battle, as Dick says. They're in the back of the locker, I think. If you'll move just a little——"
He screwed himself into as small a compass as possible, and she dived into the locker and got out a couple of tin boxes.
"And here's the bread—rather stale, I'm afraid—and some biscuits. The coffee's in that tin, and the water in this jar. Do you know how to make coffee?"
"Rather!" he said, with mock indignation. "I've made coffee under various circumstances and in various climes; in the galley of a Porto Rico coaster; in an American ravine, waiting for the game; on a Highland moor, when the stags had got scent and the last chance of sport in the day was gone like a beautiful dream; in an artist's attic in Florence, where the tobacco smoke was too thick to cut with anything less than a hatchet; and after a skirmish with the dervishes, when a cup of coffee seemed almost as precious as the life one had just managed to save by the skin of one's teeth; but I never made it under more pleasant circumstances than these."