"Nothing to cook but breakfast," he said ecstatically, "and real food the other two meals! Gee, but it's fine to eat something some other poor duffer has cooked! Say, Joe, what is it that pigs have that kills them off in bunches: sort of a—an epidemic?"
"Hog cholera," hazarded Joe. "Aren't you feeling well, Ossie?"
"Well, I wish they'd all have it," said Ossie devoutly. "I'm so plumb sick of cooking bacon!"
The rest agreed, away from Ossie's hearing, that it was a very fortunate thing that the period of eating ashore had arrived when it did, for Ossie had been showing symptoms of mutiny of late and his cooking had noticeably fallen off. "He was due to strike in another few days," said Han. "Then someone else would have had to take the job, and we would all have starved to death."
"In the absence of the cook," observed Perry gravely, "the job falls to the crew."
"No, sir, to the second mate," corrected Han. "Isn't that so, Joe?"
"I'm not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that—um—it doesn't fall to the chief engineer."
"I should say not!" retorted Perry. "Think of eating food flavoured with engine oil!"
"Couldn't be any worse than pudding flavoured with onion extract," chuckled Joe, referring to a viand prepared by Ossie while at Newburyport. Ossie had meant to put in a spoonful of vanilla, but the two bottles looked so much alike—
The pudding was never eaten, unless the fish consumed it, and the mention of it still caused Ossie great pain and humiliation.