The Vice's Coffee Pot after.
The Vice piled wood upon the fire, and while it blazed up fiercely he hastily filled the wonderful coffee-pot half full of water, and set it in the midst of the flames. Five minutes later the Cook awoke from a dream of hearing a tin peddler's wagon upset on a stone pavement. Rubbing his eyes he beheld the Vice, with a long hooked stick, rescuing various pieces of tin from the fire, and dropping them upon a boulder near by.[2] The flame had resolved the wonderful coffee-pot into its dozen or more original fragments, and as the Vice made a final dive for the spoutless, handleless, topless vessel, the Cook drawled:
"Some people cook over coals, and some prefer a blaze."
"Why," spluttered the Vice, as he blew upon a burned finger, "the Alderman always made coffee over a blaze."
"Then he did it in a coffee-pot with a bail which hooked on, instead of being fastened by solder. And besides he suspended it over the fire after this fashion."
The Vice walked away to his boat in disgust, while the rest seated themselves about the unprofessional breakfast which had been made ready. Presently he sauntered boldly among them with what he was pleased to term a coffee-cup in hand, looking rather red in the face, but sturdily demanding his breakfast.
"Some of that potted salmon, Purser. Pass us the bread, Commodore. I say, Cook, isn't that coffee ready yet? Commodore, this thing won't work. If fellows are going to shirk their share of the drudgery, the service will go to the dogs. What I want is my coffee, and I want it NOW, do you hear, Cook?"
But the Cook was magnanimous, for he had a coffee-pot of his own, and though the Vice contended that the coffee made therein had not the aroma peculiar to that made in the one which he had loved, and lost, he revealed the hollowness of his plea, (or his stomach) by drinking twice as much as any one else did.