“And did you hear?”
“Every word, mate. They were going to get the doctor to find the stuff to send all the lads to sleep, and then they were going to open the hatch and shove Jarette by himself, and the others some in the cable-tier and some in the hold.”
“Yes, yes!” cried the cook, eagerly, while I listened hard.
“Well then, that warmint yonder said it ought to be put in the soup, and so they settled it.
“‘Two can play at that game,’ I says, and I listened till they spoke so low that I opened the light a bit wider, and it slipped out of my hands and went down bang. So I nipped back to set alongside o’ Tommy here, and my gentleman comes up to peep, sees me right away, and goes back again. I thought perhaps they’d give it up then, but I kep’ my eyes open, and bimeby I sees my nipper here come to you with three tins, and he tells you what to do with them.
“‘All right,’ I says, ‘I can see through that dodge,’ so I lays low and waits my chance, empties the tin of soup you’d put aside into a pan, and then pours the one you were going to use into the one you’d set aside, and that out of the pan into the tin, but I washed it out first, and put it ready for you to use.”
“You couldn’t; I was here all the time,” said the cook, angrily.
“Oh, was you? Didn’t go round to the back to fetch taters, did you?”
“Of course. I forgot.”
“Ah, that’s right,” continued the man. “But I warn’t satisfied then, for I says to myself, ‘Them poor beggars down below won’t get the dose now, but I should like t’others to have a taste;’ and to make sure as they did, I takes the tin as you’d got the lumps o’ meat in, pours out all the pieces and fills it up from the tin they’d doctored, and filled it up again with the juice I’d poured out; now I says to myself, whichever lot they have’ll give ’em what they meant for some one else—and so it did. My word, they mixed it pretty strong.”