“And Sam and me we couldn’t agree
  With the cook at any price. 
We was both as thin as a piece of tin
While that there cook was bustin’ his skin
  On nothin’ to eat but ice.

“Says Sam to me, ’It’s a mystery
  More deep than words can utter;
Whatever we do, here’s me an you,
Us both as thin as Irish stoo,
  While he’s as fat as butter.’

“But late one night we wakes in fright
  To see by a pale blue flare,
That cook has got in a phantom pot
A big plum-duff an’ a rump-steak hot,
And the guzzlin’ wizard is eatin’ the lot,
  On top of the iceberg bare.”

“There’s a verse left out here,” said Bill, stopping the song, “owin’ to the difficulty of explainin’ exactly what happened when me and Sam discovered the deceitful nature of that cook.  The next verse is as follows:—­

“Now Sam an’ me can never agree
  What happened to Curry and Rice. 
The whole affair is shrouded in doubt,
For the night was dark and the flare went out,
And all we heard was a startled shout,
Though I think meself, in the subsequent rout,
That us bein’ thin, an’ him bein’ stout,
In the middle of pushin’ an’ shovin’ about,
  He—­must have fell off the ice.”

“That won’t do, you know,” began the Puddin’, but Sam said hurriedly, “It was very dark, and there’s no sayin’ at this date what happened.”

“Yes there is,” said the Puddin’, “for I had my eye on the whole affair, and it’s my belief that if he hadn’t been so round you’d have never rolled him off the iceberg, for you was both singing out, `Yo heave Ho’ for half-an-hour, an’ him trying to hold on to Bill’s beard.”

“In the haste of the moment,” said Bill, “he may have got a bit of a shove, for the ice bein’ slippy, and us bein’ justly enraged, and him bein’ as round as a barrel, he may, as I said, have been too fat to save himself from rollin’ off the iceberg.  The point, however, is immaterial to our story, which concerns this Puddin’; and this Puddin’,” said Bill, patting him on the basin, “was the very Puddin’ that Curry and Rice invented on the iceberg.”

“He must have been a very clever cook,” said Bunyip.

“He was, poor feller, he was,” said Bill, greatly affected.  “For plum duff or Irish stoo there wasn’t his equal in the land.  But enough of these sad subjects.  Pausin’ only to explain that me an’ Sam got off the iceberg on a homeward bound chicken coop, landed on Tierra del Fuego, walked to Valparaiso, and so got home, I will proceed to enliven the occasion with `The Ballad of the Bo’sun’s Bride’.”

And without more ado, Bill, who had one of those beef-and-thunder voices, roared out—­

“Ho, aboard the Salt Junk Sarah
  We was rollin’ homeward bound,
When the bo’sun’s bride fell over the side
  And very near got drowned. 
Rollin’ home, rollin’ home,
Rollin’ home across the foam,
  She had to swim to save her glim
And catch us rollin’ home.”