The Captain ordered the cook to cut off the fins and prepare them for his own particular use after the Chinese fashion, the almond-eyed Celestials esteeming them as an especial dainty. Then he carved two long cutlets from the back, which he also ordered to be cooked for his supper. The rest of the huge carcass he surrendered to the crew. The boatswain cut out the heart of the shark, which was still palpitating, and placed it in a tin dish. He told me it would continue to beat till sundown, when it would suddenly become motionless. I did not believe him, and told him so, but he prophesied truly. I watched that throbbing heart pretty closely for several hours. It beat firmly and regularly until the upper rim of the sun disappeared beneath the western horizon. Then it made a sudden stop, and became limp and pulseless. This may seem a yarn fit only to tell to the marines, but it is gospel truth on the word of a sailor. I have told the story to scientific men, but they have pooh-poohed at it, and declared it to have been impossible. But then it was not to be supposed that they would know anything about sharks, having got all their knowledge from musty books instead of from the sea itself. Old sailors who have crossed the line will, however, corroborate me as to this phenomenon.
The carpenter claimed the backbone, which he fashioned into a quite handsome walking-stick by impaling the finest sections of the spine on a slender bar of steel. And I may as well tell you that the "shark walking-canes" so frequently offered in South Street by impostors disguised as hardy mariners are as a rule made of sections of ox tails, prepared in a very cunning manner, and well calculated to deceive the inexperienced.
The Captain gave me the jaws, which were immense. I boiled them all night in a big kettle until all the flesh fell off them and they shone like ivory. I preserved them for many years as a souvenir of my first deep-sea voyage and of the first shark I had seen hooked.
The tail was nailed in triumph to the end of the flying jib-boom, replacing one of much smaller dimensions that had long braved both wind and weather. Sailors think that a shark's tail at the extreme end of a ship's "nose-pole" is the harbinger of good luck. While these things were being done the rest of the shark's carcass was thrown overboard for his mates to gorge upon. The only people aboard the Rajah that ate shark for supper that night were the Captain and the spinner of this yarn. The skipper feasted on the fins, followed by a big dish of cutlets. Of the last named delicacy I partook very sparingly, I warrant you, being actuated less by appetite than by curiosity. Not being an accomplished ichthyophagist like my Captain, I am forced to confess that I found his flesh to be not only flavorless but coarse.
It is an excellent thing for young men to be eager and enthusiastic in their pursuit of sport, but they should never allow their eagerness and enthusiasm to get the better of them. In a hotly contested game it is sometimes impossible for spectators to retain that composure which lends dignity to the Supreme Court, but, on the other hand, we should never allow our partisanship to carry us beyond the bounds of good behavior. I don't want to preach a sermon here on the etiquette of sport, because I am fully aware that my readers know just as much about the subject as I do; I merely want to urge them now to act on the grand stand, or along the ropes, or in the field itself just as in calmer moments they know they ought to act, and feel confident that they will.
In looking over a bundle of school papers the other day, I came across an editorial which started me to thinking about the behavior of spectators and players at school games, and I want to quote a portion of it. It does not matter what particular schools are under discussion, and so I have eliminated their names from the paragraph, substituting A and B, but otherwise the quotation is taken word for word. I did not write it myself.
There is one thing that we must condemn, and condemn very strongly, too, and that is the ungentlemanly conduct on the part of our boys, in jeering their opponents and trying to rattle their contestants. It is true that the "A" School started this, but this is no excuse for the boys to so far forget themselves and their school, and act like anything but gentlemen. The boys feel somewhat justified in the act, in that they did not begin jeering for quite a while after the "A" School had started, but at no time and for no cause are they excusable for forgetting that they are gentlemen. But to cap all this, a free fight was engaged in after the field day on some trivial cause. The less said about this the better, but we very strongly condemn the conduct of both the "B" and "A" schools in the field day on Saturday.