He put his arm about the indignant Cap'n and drew him in where the loafers couldn't listen, and continued his anxious coaxings until at last Cap'n Sproul kicked and stamped his way into the kitchen, cursing so horribly that the cat fled. He got a little initial satisfaction by throwing after her the dirty dishes in the sink, listening to their crashing with supreme satisfaction. Then he proceeded to get supper.
It had been a long time since he had indulged his natural taste for cookery. In a half-hour he had forgotten his anger and was revelling in the domain of pots and pans. He felt a sudden appetite of his own for the good, old-fashioned plum-duff of shipboard days, and started one going. Then gingercake—his own kind—came to his memory. He stirred up some of that. He sent Hiram on a dozen errands to the grocery, and Hiram ran delightedly.
"I'll show you whether I can cook or not," was the Cap'n's proud boast to the showman when the latter bustled eagerly in from one of his trips. He held out a smoking doughnut on a fork. "There ain't one woman in ten can fry 'em without 'em soakin' fat till they're as heavy as a sinker."
Hiram gobbled to the last mouthful, expressing his admiration as he ate, and the Cap'n glowed under the praise.
His especial moment of triumph came when his wife and Mrs. Look, adventuring to seek their truant husbands, sat for a little while in the tavern kitchen and ate a doughnut, and added their astonished indorsement. In the flush of his masterfulness he would not permit them to lay finger on dish, pot, or pan.
Hiram served as waiter to the lonely guest in the dining-room, and was the bearer of several messages of commendation that seemed to anger the Cap'n as much as other praise gratified him.
"Me standin' here cookin' for that sculpin!" he kept growling.
However, he ladled out an especially generous portion of plum-duff—the climax of his culinary art—and to his wrathful astonishment Hiram brought it back untasted.
"Mebbe it's all right," he said, apologetically, "but he was filled full, and he said it was a new dish to him and didn't look very good, and—"
The Cap'n grabbed the disparaged plum-duff with an oath and started for the dining-room.