your cook a coloured gentleman?" Then a disappointed and disapproving
"Ah! h'm!" was his comment upon the information that the cook happened
to be a mere white man. Yet, as they went all together towards the
forecastle, he condescended to put his head through the galley door and
boom out inside a magnificent "Good evening, doctor!" that made all the
saucepans ring. In the dim light the cook dozed on the coal locker in
front of the captain's supper. He jumped up as if he had been cut with
a whip, and dashed wildly on deck to see the backs of several men going
away laughing. Afterwards, when talking about that voyage, he used to
say:--"The poor fellow had scared me. I thought I had seen the devil."
The cook had been seven years in the ship with the same captain. He was
a serious-minded man with a wife and three children, whose society he
enjoyed on an average one month out of twelve. When on shore he took
his family to church twice every Sunday. At sea he went to sleep every
evening with his lamp turned up full, a pipe in his mouth, and an open
Bible in his hand. Some one had always to go during the night to put out
the light, take the book from his hand, and the pipe from between his
teeth. "For"--Belfast used to say, irritated and complaining--"some
night, you stupid cookie, you'll swallow your ould clay, and we will
have no cook."--"Ah! sonny, I am ready for my Maker's call... wish
you all were," the other would answer with a benign serenity that was
altogether imbecile and touching. Belfast outside the galley door danced
with vexation. "You holy fool! I don't want you to die," he howled,
looking up with furious, quivering face and tender eyes. "What's the
hurry? You blessed wooden-headed ould heretic, the divvle will have
you soon enough. Think of Us... of Us... of Us!" And he would go away,
stamping, spitting aside, disgusted and worried; while the other,
stepping out, saucepan in hand, hot, begrimed and placid, watched with a
superior, cock-sure smile the back of his "queer little man" reeling in
a rage. They were great friends.