"Cook?" Elizabeth cried. "Cook? How—how did that happen?"
"All the boys went cook summers. We used to go to district school in the winter and then go to sea in the summer. I cooked for seventeen men my first trip, and I hadn't nothing to cook in but a baking kettle, neither."
"What kind of boat did you go in?"
Grandfather industriously plucked at the carcass in his hand.
"A fishing vessel. She was called the Good Intent. I used to make seven loaves of bread at a time, and we had to eat it every scrap up before we could touch the new. It didn't make much difference, though, because we carried four bushels of meal, part Indian and part rye, and it all soured before we was out long, but we et it just the same. We used to stay out two or three weeks at a time, and bring in seven or eight thousand fish."
"I can't believe that you used to be a cook. It doesn't seem possible."
"I didn't used to be a cook," said Grandfather, quietly, "I used to go cook on my grandfather's vessel. Have you heard from that friend of yours lately whose brother-in-law is a count?"
"No. Yes, that is. She writes me quite regularly." Elizabeth blushed crimson. "She's an awfully nice girl, with no nonsense about her at all."
"'Taint so much her that I'm interested in as her brother-in-law," Grandfather said, solemnly, "he must have been a pretty smart man, to earn that title of count by his own efforts."
"I—I don't think he did," Elizabeth said, before she caught the twinkle in her grandfather's eye.