It would have been perfectly unbearable to his pride that these strangers should guess his real uneasiness or its cause, so he talked as if the fact of the girl's long absence was not in any way remarkable.
Having mixed a batter the American sliced pork fat into the hot pan and was instantly obscured from view by the smoke thereof.

In a minute his face appeared above it like the face of a genius.
"You will observe, gentlemen," he cried without bashfulness, "that I now perform the eminently interesting operation of dropping cakes--one, two, three.

May the intelligent young lady return to eat them!" No one laughed, but his companions smiled patiently at his antics--a patience born of sitting in a very hot, steamy room after weeks in the open air.
"You are a cook," remarked Bates.
The youth bent his long body towards him at a sudden angle.

"Born a cook--dentist by profession--by choice a vagabond." "Dentist ?" said Bates curiously.
"At your service, sir." "He is really a dentist," said one of the surveyors with sleepy amusement.

"He carries his forceps round in his vest pocket." "I lost them when I scrambled head first down this gentleman's macadamised road this morning, but if you want a tooth out I can use the tongs." "My teeth are all sound," said Bates.
"Thank the Lord for that!" the young man answered with an emphatic piety which, for all that appeared, might have been perfectly sincere.
"And the young lady ?" he asked after a minute.
"What ?" "The young lady's teeth--the teeth of the intelligent young lady--the intelligent teeth of the young lady--are they sound ?" "Yes." He sighed deeply.