"Who"s goin" to stoke?" demanded Barnes, rubbing his chin affectionately with the pad of his right thumb.
""Im wot"s been the wickedest," suggested Bindle.
They were in no mood for lightness, however. None had yet breakfasted, and all had suffered the acute inconvenience of camping under the supreme direction of a benign but misguided cleric.
"Wot the "ell I come "ere for, I don"t know," said a man with a moist, dirty face. "Might a gone to Southend with my brother-in-law, I might,"
he added reminiscently.
"You wasn"t "alf a mug, was you?" remarked a wiry little man in a singlet and khaki trousers.
"You"re right there, mate," was the response. "Blinkin" barmy I must a"
been."
"I was goin" to Yarmouth," confided a third, "only my missis got this ruddy camp on the streamin" brain. Jawed about it till I was sick and give in for peace an" quietness. Now, look at me."
"It"s all the ruddy Government, a-startin" these "ere stutterin" camps,"
complained a red-headed man with the face of a Bolshevist.
"They "as races at Yarmouth, too," grumbled the previous speaker.
"Not till September," put in another.
"August," said the first speaker aggressively, and the two proceeded fiercely to discuss the date of the Yarmouth Races.
When the argument had gone as far as it could without blows, and had quieted all other conversation, Bindle slipped away from the group and returned to the tent to find Mrs. Bindle busy preparing breakfast.
He smacked his lips with the consciousness that of all the campers he was the best fed.
"Gettin" a move on," he cried cheerily, and once more he smacked his lips.
"Pity you can"t do something to help," she retorted, "instead of loafing about with that pack of lazy scamps."
Bindle retired to the interior of the tent and proceeded with his toilet.
"That"s right, take no notice when I speak to you," she snapped.
"Oh, my Gawd!" he groaned. "It"s scratch all night an" sc.r.a.p all day.
It"s an "oliday all right."
He strove to think of something tactful to say; but at the moment nothing seemed to suggest itself, and Mrs. Bindle viciously broke three eggs into the frying-pan in which bacon was already sizzling, like an energetic wireless-plant.
The savoury smell of the frying eggs and bacon reached Bindle inside the tent, inspiring him with feelings of benevolence and good-will.
"I"m sorry, Lizzie," he said contritely, "but I didn"t "ear you."
"You heard well enough what I said," was Mrs. Bindle"s rejoinder, as she broke a fourth egg into the pan.
"The kitchen"s come," he said pleasantly.
"Oh, has it?" Mrs. Bindle did not raise her eyes from the frying-pan she was holding over the scout-fire.
For a minute or two Bindle preserved silence, wondering what topic he possessed that would soothe her obvious irritation.
"They say the big tent"s down at the station," he remarked, repeating a rumour he had heard when engaged in examining the field-kitchen.
Mrs. Bindle vouchsafed no reply.
"Did you sleep well, Lizzie?" he enquired.
"Sleep!" she repeated scornfully. "How was I to sleep on rough straw like that. I ache all over."
He saw that he had made a false move in introducing the subject of sleep.
"The milk hasn"t come," she announced presently with the air of one making a statement she knew would be unpopular. Bindle hated tea without milk.
"You don"t say so," he remarked. "I must "ave a word with Daisy. She didn"t oughter be puttin" on "er bloomin" frills."
"The paraffin"s got into the sugar," was the next bombsh.e.l.l.
"Well, well," said Bindle. "I suppose you can"t "ave everythink as you would like it."
"Another time, perhaps you"ll get up yourself and help with the meals."
"I ain"t much at them sort o" things," he replied, conscious that Mrs.
Bindle"s anger was rising.
"You leave me to do everything, as if I was your slave instead of your wife."
Bindle remained silent. He realized that there were times when it was better to bow to the storm.
"Ain"t it done yet?" he enquired, looking anxiously at the frying-pan.
"That"s all you care about, your stomach," she cried, her voice rising hysterically. "So long as you"ve got plenty to eat, nothing else matters. I wonder I stand it. I--I----"
Bindle"s eyes were still fixed anxiously upon the frying-pan, which, in her excitement, Mrs. Bindle was moving from side to side of the fire.
"Look out!" he cried, "you"ll upset it, an" I"m as "ungry as an "awk."
Suddenly the light of madness sprang into her eyes.
"Oh! you are, are you? Well, get somebody else to cook your meals," and with that she inverted the frying-pan, tipping the contents into the fire. As Bindle sprang up from the box on which he had been sitting, she rubbed the frying-pan into the ashes, making a hideous mess of the burning-wood, eggs and bacon.
With a scream that was half a sob, she fled to the shelter of the tent, leaving Bindle to gaze down upon the wreck of what had been intended for his breakfast.
Picking up a stick, charred at one end, he began to rake among the embers in the vague hope of being able to disinter from the wreck something that was eatable; but Mrs. Bindle"s action in rubbing the frying-pan into the ashes had removed from the contents all semblance of food. With a sigh he rose to his feet to find the bishop gazing down at him.
"Had a mishap?" he asked pleasantly.