bridge aft. "And did you fellows think that any polite game of
conversation up on the bridge was going to get you a shift of rations?"
the pump-man was saying. "Don't you know that what he saves out of the
ship's allowance goes into his own pocket? What you fellows want to do
is to go and scare the cook to death--or half way to it. If it's only
for a couple of days, it'll help. Here, let's go back and shake him up.
Besides, we might as well start something to make a fellow smile. Most
morbid packet ever I was in. You'd think it was a crime to laugh on her.
Come on."

The galley was a little house by itself on the after deck of the ship.
Noyes saw the pump-man call out the cook, and after a time, their voices
rising, he heard, "Now, cookie, no more of that slush. Mind you, I'm
wasting no time talking to the captain. I'm talking to you. We know that
he slips you a little ten-spot every month for keeping down the grub
bills; but even if he does, you'll have to dig out something better."

"I'll be giving you what I please."

"You will, will you?" The cook was a good-sized man, and he held a
skillet in his hand, but he was taken by surprise. The pump-man whipped
the skillet from him, whirled him about, ran him into his galley, and
closed and bolted the door behind him. A stove-pipe projected from the
roof of the galley. The pump-man climbed up, stuffed a bunch of wet
cotton waste into the stovepipe, and with a valve which he seemed to be
taking apart, took his stand by the taffrail.

Every few minutes he got up from his valve, put his ear to the door of
the shack, and listened. After twenty minutes or so he opened the door,
lifted out the cook, and held him over the rail. He was gulping like a