"'Ah, what wouldn't I give to touch a lady's hand again?'" he sometimes quoted, but not aloud, for the Baker had an unconscious way of jumping on his better side when it came up. The only time he had quoted it in the Baker's hearing, Mandeville told a story of a "lidy in the Mile End Road," which was nothing but a vile variant of an ancient Joe Miller translated into the language of the East End, and brought up to date.
The general trend of Smith's Creek, for so Mandeville named it with great ceremony and the emptying of some tea leaves upon its waters, lay generally north and south. It flowed south, and that made Smith a little uneasy. In spite of his geographical weakness, he had some idea that such a creek should run into a river, and he could think of no river on the coast, now some four hundred miles away, into which it could flow.
On the second day of their tramp south by the slow waters, a notion came to him which he kept to himself for some hours. But when they camped at noon to boil the billy he spoke.
"Which way are we heading now, Mandy?"
"I never give it a thort," answered Mandy.
"Look at the sun."
The Baker looked at the noon-day light, and drawing a few lines on the sand, looked up and shook his head.
"Why, Smith, we're going south-east, and more east nor that."
"Yes, we're going inland," said Smith. "And I don't believe this is a creek at all."
"What do you mean?" asked the Baker, whose colonial knowledge was very small compared with Smith's.