They are good friends, but their relationship is strictly platonic.

You will perceive that the British and French commissioners ascend the Yangtze at pleasure, and have the steamers of their respective countries at their disposal. I was compelled, for the want of other conveyance, to come hither in a little British steamer which plies between Shanghai and Hong Kong.

But in the busy summer months of fields and pastures it is a farm woodlot which sees little of its owner, or, indeed, of any other two-legged silvestral traveler.

O we will walk this world, / Yoked in all exercise of noble end.