increased their orders, eggs, rashers of bacon,
more eggs, more bacon, more tea, more slices, and
so forth, they denying wistfully all the while that
they cared for anything more, and devouring it
ravenously as fast as it arrived.

"First cup o tea I ve ad in a fortnight," said the
Carter.

"Wonderful tea, that," said the Carpenter.

They each drank two pints of it, and I assure
you that it was slops. It resembled tea less than
lager beer resembles champagne. Nay, it was
water-bewitched, and did not resemble tea at all.

It was curious, after the first shock, to notice the
effect the food had on them. At first they were
melancholy, and talked of the divers times they had
contemplated suicide. The Carter, not a week
before, had stood on the bridge and looked at
the water, and pondered the question. Water, the
Carpenter insisted with heat, was a bad route. He,
for one, he knew, would struggle. A bullet was
andier, but how under the sun was he to get
hold of a revolver? That was the rub.

They grew more cheerful as the hot tea soaked
in, and talked more about themselves. The Carter
had buried his wife and children, with the excep
tion of one son, who grew to manhood and helped
him in his little business. Then the thing hap
pened. The son, a man of thirty-one, died of the

[[87]]

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