[40]
]‘Dear me, how very interesting,’ replied the widow blandly, with a languishing glance at the skipper. ‘But’
(as a burst of hoarse laughter came on the scented wind) ‘they’re a terribly rough set, are they not, captain? I’m sure, but for yourself and your brave officers, I shouldn’t feel safe for a minute. I think I heard someone say, too, that they actually complained about their food at the beginning of the journey.’
This was touching the skipper on a tender spot.
‘At first, ma’am, at first,’
assented he severely, after a sharp suspicious look at the somewhat faded features. ‘But they’ve found me out, now, ma’am. They know John Flett’s up to ’em and their little games. The less food you give a sailor, ma’am, the better he works. Full an’ plenty’s a mistake. Give ’em a belly full an’ they’ll growl from mornin’ till night, an’ all night through. They’ll growl, ma’am, I do assure you, at the very best of beef and pork, the whitest of biscuits, an’ the plumpest of rice. Growl! They’d growl if you gave ’em toasted angels!’
‘What horrible wretches!’ exclaimed the widow sympathetically. ‘And what a lot of worry you must have with them, captain!’
‘No one but myself can imagine it, ma’am,’ replied the skipper, as he moved off, meditating on the possibility of stopping the usual dole of treacle for the Sunday duff. That laughter from for’ard annoyed him beyond endurance.
Presently the cuddy went to luncheon; and the starboard watch to its dinner.
[41]
]The lump of dark unleavened dough and hook-pot full of molasses were there, but untouched, and awaiting the ocean sepulchre which had been their fate for many past Sundays.
‘I ralely don’t know what this is,’ said Bill, as he helped himself to a paté de foie gras out of a dozen which lay on the deck. ‘But whatever it is, it ain’t to be sneezed at. Some sorter swell pie, I reckons. Talk ’bout jelly, lor! What you got there, Ned?’