Dan groaned. “I, for one. I could eat nails.”
“Same here,” said Bob. “Tommy, you get busy, like a good little cookie, and fry a few thousand eggs.”
“And make some coffee,” added Dan.
“All right,” Tom replied. “Only there’s a lot of canned baked beans down there. What’s the matter with those?”
“Search me,” said Dan. “Suppose you heat some up and we’ll find out. Beans sound better than eggs to yours truly.”
“I suppose that, as Tom’s the cook, he had better give us what he thinks best,” said Nelson.
“Maybe,” Dan replied, “only it gives him a terrible power over the rest of us. If he should get a grouch, we might have nothing but pilot bread and water.”
“You’ll have to be good to me,” said Tom with a grin as he started down the steps to the engine room.
“Oh, we will be,” answered Dan earnestly; and to give weight to his words he aided Tom’s descent with a gentle but well-placed kick.
“You get short rations for that,” sung out the cook from below.