By PERCY LONGHURST
"Yeh may gas about torpedoes an' 'fernal machines an' such like, but yeh can't learn me nothin'; onct I had t' do wi' suthin' o' th' sort that turned th' heads o' a dozen men from black ter white in 'bout ten minutes," and the ancient mariner looked at me with careful impressiveness.
"Bad, eh?" I inquired.
"Sh'd think it was—for them poor chaps."
"Didn't turn your hair white, Uncle?"
"Gue-e-ss not," and the ancient mariner had a fit of chuckling that nearly choked him.
When he recovered he told me the yarn. I had heard several of old Steve's yarns, and I considered that his fine talents were miserably wasted; he ought to have been a politician or a real estate agent. This yarn, however, might very well have been true.
"It was 'bout nineteen years ago," Steve commenced, "an' I'd jest taken up a job as cook on the Here at Last, a blamed old Noah's Ark of a wind-jammer from New York to Jamaica. She did th' trip in 'bout th' same time as yeh'd walk it. She was a beauty—an' th' crew 'bout fitted her. Where th' old man had gathered 'em from th' Lord on'y knows; but they was th' most difficult lot I've ever sailed with, which is sayin' a deal consid'rin' that, man an' boy, I've been a sailor for forty years. They was as contrairy as women, an' as stoopid as donkeys. I couldn't do nothin' right for 'em. They complained of the coffee, grumbled at th' biscuit, an' swore terrible at th' meat. But most of all they swore at me."
"'It all lies in th' cookin',' an old one-eyed chap, named Barton, used ter say. 'Any cook that is worth his salt can do wonders wi' th' worst vittles'; an' he told me how he'd once sailed with a cook as c'd make a stewed cat taste better'n a rabbit. An', durn me, when I went ashore next, an' at great risk managed to lay holt of a big tom and cooked it for em, hopin' to please 'em, an' went inter th' fo'c's'le arter dinner an' told 'em what I'd done, ef that self-same chap, Barton, didn't hit me over th' head wi' his tin can for tryin' ter poison 'em, as he said. They complained to th' old man, too, which was worse; for when we got t' th' next port my leave ashore was stopped, an' all for tryin' to please 'em. Rank ingratitood, I call it.
"Another time I tried to give the junk—it really was bad, but as I hadn't bought th' stores, that wasn't no fault o' mine—a bit of a more pleasant flavor by bilin' with it a packet o' spice I found in th' skipper's cabin. One o' th' sailors comes into my galley in a towerin' rage arter dinner.