"Won't he!" exclaimed Charley decisively. "Just wait and see. My men understand that they have to cook if the vessel never gets up off her beam ends."
"What, you do not mean to say it will be all—" Mr. Lemons came and laid his head on Charley's shoulder—"that it will be all just as it was yesterday? Oh, say that it will. 'Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples.'"
"Get up—off me, you fat lump," cried Charley, pushing him away vehemently. "I say that we will do better to-day, or we'll put the cook in irons. I hate a measly fellow who gives in just when you want him. I have sacked four stewards and six cooks about this very thing, and it is a sore subject with me."
"De-lightful man," said Lemons, gazing rapturously at Charley.
"Rankin will tell you," said Jack. "He drew the papers. The whole thing is down in black and white."
"True enough," said Maurice. "But I don't see how signing papers will teach a man to cook on the side of a stove, when the ship is lying over and pitching like this."
"No more do I," said Lemons anxiously.
"Why, man alive!" said Charley, "the whole stove works something like a compass, don't-you-know. He has got it all swinging—slung in irons."
"That is far better than having the cook in irons," suggested Margaret.
"Oh!" said Mr. Lemons, as he gazed at the sky, "that remark appeals to me. The lady is correct."