“On Saturday.—Same as Tuesday.
“There, how is that?” he asked, “any mistakes?”
“Not one,” answered Josephine; “but really, Harry, is that all you received?”
“Why,” exclaimed Flutters, “seems to me that's considerable. Circus folks often don't fare no better than that, and don't get things so reg'lar, either.”
“And yet, Flutters, that is only two-thirds of the allowance of an English seaman. However, we would have managed well enough to exist if the things had been good in themselves or decently cooked, but all the provisions were of so wretched a quality that many a poor 'Jersey' prisoner died from starvation through sheer inability to eat them.”
“Who cooked the things for you?” asked Hazel.
“Whenever we could manage, Hazel, we cooked them ourselves. Do you see that big derrick on the starboard side? Well, that was for taking in water, and we each had a scanty allowance of so much and no more each day. But, as a rule, we contrived to save a little of it with which to do our own cooking, because only the toughest men on board could so much as swallow the food prepared by the ship's cook. Under the forecastle, there in the bow, hangs a great copper divided in the middle and holding two or three hogsheads of water. In one side they cooked the meat, in the other the peas and oatmeal—sometimes, I believe, in salt water, but always in water so stale as to be absolutely unfit for use. So five or six of us would club together, each contributing our portion of water to the cooking supply, and then, by begging a little wood from the cook, now and then, and splitting it very carefully and economically with our knives, we could manage to keep a fire going that would soon set our little pots boiling. It was a great day for us, I remember, when a tangle of driftwood came bumping against the ship's side, and we were allowed to haul it on board for our fires.”
“It must have been very hard only now and then to have had a little butter for the biscuit,” remarked Hazel, to whom this particular feature of Harry's story appealed most pathetically, so very fond was her own little ladyship of the variety and sufficiency of a well-appointed table.
“But the butter was not forthcoming, Hazel; they gave us rancid sweet-oil instead, which refused to pass muster with our Yankee palates, so that we were able to bestow a double portion upon some poor Frenchmen, who were very grateful for it.”
Flutters had changed his mind about the adequacy of the “Jersey's” bill of fare, and was growing not a little indignant over Harry's narration.