[THE VOYAGE OF THE "RATTLETRAP."]
BY HAYDEN CARRUTH.
VIII.
The next morning the condition of the tempers of the crew of the Rattletrap was reversed. Jack was feeling better, and was quite amiable, and inclined to regret his bloodthirsty language of the night before. But Ollie and I, on our diet of gooseberries, had not prospered, and woke up as cross as Old Blacky. The first thing I did was to seize the empty gooseberry can and hit the side of the wagon a half-dozen resounding blows.
"Get up there," I cried, "and 'tend to breakfast. No pretending you're sick this morning."
"All right," came Jack's voice, cheerfully. "Certainly. No need of your getting excited, though. You see, I really wasn't hungry last night, or I'd have got supper."
"But we were hungry!" answered Ollie. "I don't think I was ever much hungrier in my life; and then to get nothing but a pint of gooseberries! I could eat my hat this morning."
"I'm sorry," said Jack, coming out; "but I can't cook unless I'm hungry myself. The hunger of others does not inspire me. I gave you all there was—your hunger ought to have inspired you to do something with those gooseberries."
"I'd like to know what sort of a meal you'd have got up with a can of gooseberries?"
"Why, my dear young nephew," exclaimed Jack, "if I'd been awakened to action I'd have fricasséed those gooseberries, built them up into a gastronomical poem, and made a meal of them fit for a king. A great cook like I am is an artist as much as a great poet. He—"