"I'm so plumb
sick of cooking bacon!"
The rest agreed, away from Ossie's hearing, that it was a very fortunate
thing that the period of eating ashore had arrived when it did, for
Ossie had been showing symptoms of mutiny of late and his cooking had
noticeably fallen off. "He was due to strike in another few days," said
Han. "Then someone else would have had to take the job, and we would all
have starved to death."
"In the absence of the cook," observed Perry gravely, "the job falls to
the crew."
"No, sir, to the second mate," corrected Han. "Isn't that so, Joe?"
"I'm not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that--um--it doesn't fall
to the chief engineer."
"I should say not!" retorted Perry. "Think of eating food flavoured with
engine oil!"
"Couldn't be any worse than pudding flavoured with onion extract,"
chuckled Joe, referring to a viand prepared by Ossie while at
Newburyport. Ossie had meant to put in a spoonful of vanilla, but the
two bottles looked so much alike--
The pudding was never eaten, unless the fish consumed it, and the
mention of it still caused Ossie great pain and humiliation.
They went into the water every morning before breakfast, lived almost
every minute in the open air--for even at night the wide-open ports and
doors made the cabins like sleeping porches--ate heartily, got enough
exercise to keep them lean and hungry and became tanned with sun and
wind to the colour of light mahogany.
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