They came back after what seemed a long time, and our man said:

"While I'm fixing Gregory, you and Gerald tackle this."

It was half a loaf of bread and some potted beef done up in oiled
paper, and I'm sure Jerry ate the oiled paper, too. I'd heard of
starving people falling on food and rending it savagely, but I never
knew exactly what rending was until we did it to the bread. We gave
some of it to Greg, too, while our man was fixing him.

I never saw any one before who could do things so fast and so
gently. He had nice, brown, quick hands, and he looked so grown up
and useful. He'd brought a roll of bandage stuff--the kind with a
blue wrapper that you keep in First Aid kits--and a book that had
"Coast Pilot Guide and Harbor Entrances of New England" on the
cover. I didn't see what he could want that for, except on the boat,
till he put it under Greg's armpit and bandaged his arm across it to
keep it steady. The white waistcoat was in our man's way, so he
ripped it down the side and got it off entirely.

"I was an explorer," Greg explained shakily.

"He was Baroo, the Madagascar cabin-boy," Jerry said, gnawing the
loaf, and I thought it seemed years ago that we had _trekked_ across
Wecanicut.

"I see," said our man, in his nice, kind, reliable way, and then he
said to Greg, "I didn't hurt you much, did I, old fellow?"