“You’ll not mind eating in the kitchen, Kit?” his mother asked. “We eat there now, while we’re alone.”
“Mind it!” Kit exclaimed; “it’s just what I wanted to do. Oh, look here, Vieve!” he went on, as he took his mother by the arm and led her into the kitchen, “have you cooked all these things so quick? Beefsteak, and fried potatoes, and ham and eggs, and coffee? Why, we ought to have you for cook aboard ship.”
“Ah, you don’t know how good it all tastes!” he declared, when they had set to work at the eatables. “We have good fare on the ship, first rate; but it’s not like home. No such coffee as this, I tell you. Coffee is always bad at sea, they say.”
“And do you have to eat out of a little mess pan, like the other sailors?” Vieve asked.
“Do I!” Kit laughed. “I guess you don’t know what a dignified position your big brother holds, my child. Why, I eat in the cabin, with silver forks and spoons, and a monogram on all the dishes. And in the evening I sit at the Captain’s desk and do my writing.”
“Oh, Kit!” Mrs. Silburn expostulated. She was not quite sure whether he was joking with them or not.
“It’s a fact,” he answered, laughing to think how grand he could make everything appear if he felt inclined to boast. “And I wash the dishes afterwards, and clean the spoons; but that part we don’t speak of in polite society.”
They were done eating, but still busy talking, when Vieve suddenly asked:—
“What’s in that barrel, Kit?”
“Ah, Miss Curiosity!” he laughed. “You’re the same old Vieve, ain’t you? I suppose that’s the way your relation Eve prodded poor Adam on to his ruin. But to tell you the truth, Vieve, I don’t exactly know what’s in it myself. Suppose I bring it in and we find out.”