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the companion-way you entered the sleeping cabin; it had a bunk on either side above three rows of drawers, where the traveller could stow all his gear. Small electric lights were fixed in the ceiling, and at the head of each bunk, to facilitate reading in bed. A wardrobe and gun-racks completed the furniture, but the wardrobe was generally full of deck-chairs, spare bedding, and the laodah's brass cleaning materials. Down either side throughout the length of the craft sliding windows one could not really call them ports gave ample light. The saloon came next with sofas that could also be used as bunks: in the centre stood the dining table, with flaps which folded to give more room; at the far end on the side stood a sideboard balanced on the other side by a built-in ice-box; fixed above were rows of shelves with circular holes into which the crockery and glass-ware would fit. There was also an arm-chair and a desk at which reports could conveniently be written.
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The two doors at the far end led, the one to a small galley fitted with a tiny coal cooking stove and an assortment of cooking utensils, where the cook-boy would turn out a succession of appetising dishes; the other door led to the bathroom.
To raise the waste-pipe above the level of the river water outside, the diminutive bath was mounted on a platform, which brought it nearer to the low ceiling. A tap let water in from a tank installed on the deck above. By a combination of levitation and contortion it was possible to introduce the body, in a folded condition, into the bath without contusing the head or committing hara-kiri on the bath-tap; but most, after one or two attempts, would give the effort up. In my time the bath was usually filled with eggs, and cabbages, or potatoes or fish.
The other contraption of the bathroom was one of those anomalies, which throw doubt on the sanity of ship-builders. It gleamed with brass, and glass, and knobs that you had to turn in the right order. At one side was a pump handle, which you worked vigorously up and down with a noise audible above the purr of the motors, and if you had manipulated the knobs properly guggling sounds indicated that the mechanism was functioning correctly. If you turned the knobs in the wrong order, the consequences were disastrous to you. It only remains to add that the seat provided for this curiosity of the ship-builder's art was so very small as to preclude any thought of comfort in its use.
A bulkhead separated these fancy fixtures from the engine room. The