"Nor more than three men to land them on a shore upon which a gentle tug at the painter will beach a Red Laker," said the Cook.
"Give me a boat," said the Vice, "which steers in the ordinary ship-shape manner."
"I," remarked the Commodore, "prefer one whose Commander don't have to analyze a whole rope yard before he can get her into sailing condition."
"The idea of oilcloth decks for any sort of a craft!" exclaimed the Purser.
"Or of decks that make you imagine it's resurrection morn, and you're crossing the Styx in your own coffin," said the Cook.
"Order, gentlemen," shouted the ruler of the feast; "if you've any personal difficulties to settle, please retire to the ante-room, and cease disturbing the club."
"Ze ante-room," remarked the caterer, "is full of ze Alderman an' ze Judge, who fight about ze merits of ze Rob Roy boats an' ze paper canoe."
"Then I will settle the question myself," said the President, taking from his pocket a copper cent of the fathers. "Heads signifies the superiority of the Chrysalids, tails of the Red Lakers."
The coin spun in the air, and the quartette sprang to its collective feet. It came down exactly edgewise into a bit of Fromage de Brie, and so remained.
Footnotes
[9] Note by the Commodore.—The Cook's notoriously fertile imagination has misled him slightly in regard to this menu. But let it stand. The Commodore, however, wishes to state that salt-pork and hard-tack formed the staple of the repast so far as he was personally concerned.
[10] Note by the rest of the Squadron—"As usual—Ha ha!"
[11] The astute congressman who occasionally enables the eagle to scream may find a valuable precedent in this act of the Vice.