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'Yes, said Dick, deliberately, 'I like the power; I like the fun; I like the fuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the people who make the fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they're a queer gang, an amazingly queer gang! 'They have been good enough to you, at any rate. Than tin-pot exhibition of your sketches must have paid.
Even the tin-pot fraternal orders, which are constantly cadging for members and seem to accept any one not a downright felon, are exclusive in their fantastic way, and no doubt there are hundreds of thousands of proud American freemen, the heirs of Washington and Jefferson, their liberty safeguarded by a million guns, who pine in secret because they are ineligible to membership in the Masons, the Odd Fellows or even the Knights of Pythias.
This resolution was no sooner communicated to the savages than they expressed their delight, sending off Tin-pot and Slit-nose with the intelligence, while the Dipper and Smudge remained in the ship, apparently on terms of perfect good-fellowship with everybody on board.
These thefts were soon detected and put a stop to, but they gave rise to many an amusing scene, and proved the wonderful imitative powers of the natives. "A sailor had given a Fuegan," says Weddell, "a tin-pot full of coffee, which he drank, and was using all his art to steal the pot.
"I must try and get our rifles before it is too late," shouted Yorke in my ear. "I know the place, but if I don't get there pretty quick, I shall never be able to recognise it. Stay where you are until I get back, then we'll try and find a better camping place before night comes on if this little tin-pot island isn't blown out of the water over on to New Guinea in the meantime."
At such times, they usually surmounted a highly-polished tin-pot placed on the lid of the chest. Yet, for all this, the Christianity of men-of-war's men, and their disposition to contribute to pious enterprises, are often relied upon. Several times subscription papers were circulated among the crew of the Neversink, while in harbour, under the direct patronage of the Chaplain.
One has only got to bring together a few ragged, dissatisfied men, and, taking horse, charge pell-mell into poor Mr. Chillingworth's dilapidated old tin-pot. I almost feel like that unhappy gentleman to-night, ready to blubber. But, after all, my position is not quite so hopeless as his; I have no brutalised, purple-nosed Briton sitting like a nightmare on my chest, pressing the life out of me."
He has, indeed, reached such a pass in the latter department that it has become almost impossible for him to think of himself save as an obedient member of some vast, powerful and unintelligibly despotic organization a church, a trades-union, a political party, a tin-pot fraternal order, or what not , and often he is a member of more than one, and impartially faithful to all.
Every effort was made to gain the nearest island; to reach the mainland was impossible, for the rain poured down a blinding deluge; it was with difficulty the little craft was kept afloat, by baling out the water; to do this, Louis was fain to use his cap, and Catharine assisted with the old tin-pot which she had fortunately brought from the trapper's shanty.
And again the American will say: "That's all right; I am not talking of Europe. You've been fighting all over the world all the time. There has never been a year when you have not been licking some little tin-pot king and freezing on to his possessions."
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