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A battered tea-kettle was set to boil over an absurd alcohol-stove that required expert assistance to maintain its equilibrium. Adoree flung out of her finery and donned a Japanese robe, offering another to Lorelei. A plate of limber crackers was unearthed from somewhere, also the disreputable remains of a box of marshmallows; and these latter Madamoiselle Demorest toasted on a hat-pin.

Riley made him promises rich as the Orient beryl, and permitted him to follow the example of two of the bandsmen and pitch a cot on the trampled hay flooring of the dressing-room tent, behind the stage. There also Carl prepared breakfast on an alcohol-stove. The canvas creaked all night; negroes and small boys stuck inquisitive heads under the edge of the canvas.

A little crowd of women from the vicinity of the swamp were awaiting my arrival to see the canoe. One ancient dame, catching sight of the alcohol-stove which I took from my vest-pocket, clapped her thin hands and enthusiastically exclaimed, "What a nice thing for a sick-room-the best nuss-lamp I ever seed!"

She tells me that once, being shipwrecked, she grasped her tea-caddy, her alcohol-stove, and a large bottle of alcohol, and prepared for the worst. They drifted four days on a raft, and she made five-o'clock tea every day, to the great encouragement of the unfortunates.

There was a great rug upon the floor, a white-sheeted and counterpaned bed, fresh pajamas, table, chair, alcohol-stove, glasses and cups and water-pitchers. There were cloths for fresh bandages, wide palm-leaf fans . . . there was even ice and the promise of further ice to come. The sun was shut out by heavy curtains across the main entrance and the broken-out holes in the easterly wall.