'Miss, your teeth are too little and white for such beef as that.'
'I'll try a cut, too, with your leave, captain,' said Mr. Owen.
The captain grinned at his wife, but complied nevertheless, and when we sat down to supper, the steward placed a cube of forecastle beef before us. There were plenty of good things on the table: my father had half filled the lazarette, or after-hold, with delicacies, and we carried an abundance of live stock: everything in that way, perhaps, but a cow, for which no room could be made; but the steam of the sailors' beef filled the atmosphere; the smells of all the other dishes yielded to it. And yet it was good meat of its sort.
Mrs. Burke wrinkled her nose, and said, 'Miss Marie, please do not touch it.'
'Captain Burke, I will taste a piece,' said I.
'And I will thank you for a slice, captain,' said Mr. Owen.
The captain made a great business of sharpening a carving knife, all the while glancing from me to his wife with a laughing eye. The stuff yielded to the sharp blade in a curled shaving: it was like cutting a block of wood, that part I mean where the heart is.
'Don't put it to your lips, my dear,' cried Mrs. Burke.
I tasted a morsel: the steward watched me with an ill-concealed grin; the meat, if meat it could be called, was hard as leather, salt as the brine over the side, of a texture and hue no more resembling corned beef such as we know the thing on shore than a whelk is like a turtle.