S. “Well, vermicelli and macaroni, and then a bit of delicious white turbot, with oyster sauce and——”
S. “All very well to say go on; but I shall have those three beans, you greedy beggars. Well, then, after the fish came—” etc., etc., etc.
When S. had finished, R. would begin.
“That just reminds me of an hotel I was at in France,” etc., and so each one told his experiences, to the infinite delectation of his neighbours, and having locust-like devoured everything we came across, we used to get up hungry and haggard, and run on deck to smoke away the tail end of our appetite.
In those days, our grace before and after meat was rather a peculiar one. The president said the first; it was, “Curse the cat.” Then just before we rose from table, “Mr. Vice, will you kindly return thanks.”
“Confound the cat.”
The Last of the Skipper’s Imp.
No one ever saw the last of him, however; although a seaman, called Davis, swore point black, that he had seen the cat fly overboard in a sheet of blue flame; but then Davis was the biggest lubber and the greatest liar in the ship. The only thing known for certain is this: we were about three days’ sail from Symon’s Town, Cape of Good Hope. The night was dark and the weather squally, and poor Tom was last seen sitting, very quiet and pensive-like, on the hammock nettings aft. He was seen there, I say, in the middle watch; and he was never seen again alive or dead. The men swore roundly that he was a devil nothing more nor less, and that, being a devil, he couldn’t stomach my lord bishop on board, and consequently took French leave and went home. The truth, I suppose is, that the ship gave a nasty lee lurch, and Tom, half asleep, missed his footing, and tumbled overboard. I know the skipper was sorry.
We kept a good look out for the Flying Dutchman after Tom’s demise; but very much to my disappointment, we did not fall in with that ghostly ship. If I were merely writing a sailor’s yarn, I should certainly say we had seen her, and give a most photographic-like description of her; but such stories I leave landsmen to tell, for I think if a man has been for ten or a dozen years at sea, and kept his weather eye lifting all the time, it will take him the remainder of his life to tell the whole truth alone.