Comfortable as rock fireplace and stockade made the cabin now, the Colonel had been feeling all that morning that the official House-Warming was fore-doomed to failure. Nevertheless, as he was cook that week, he could not bring himself to treat altogether lightly his office of Master of the Feast. There would probably be no guests. Even their own little company would likely be incomplete, but t here was to be a spread that afternoon, "anyways."
Even had the Colonel needed any keeping up to the mark, the office would have been cheerfully undertaken by O'Flynn or by Potts, for whom interest in the gustatory aspect of the occasion was wholly undimmed by the threatened absence of Mac and the "little divvle."
"There'll be the more for us," said Potts enthusiastically.
O'Flynn's argument seemed to halt upon a reservation. He looked over the various contributions to the feast, set out on a board in front of the water-bucket, and, "It's mate I'm wishin' fur," says he.
"We've got fish."
"That's only mate on Fridays. We've had fish fur five days stiddy, an' befure that, bacon three times a day wid sivin days to the week, an' not enough bacon ayther, begob, whin all's said and done! Not enough to be fillin', and plenty to give us the scurrvy. May the divil dance on shorrt rations!"
"No scurvy in this camp for a while yet," said the Colonel, throwing some heavy objects into a pan and washing them vigorously round and round.
"Pitaties!" O'Flynn's eyes dwelt lovingly on the rare food. "Ye've hoarded 'em too long, man, they've sprouted."
"That won't prevent you hoggin' more'n your share, I'll bet," said Potts pleasantly.
"I don't somehow like wasting the sprouts," observed the Colonel anxiously. "It's such a wonderful sight—something growing." He had cut one pallid slip, and held it tenderly between knife and thumb.