The negroes chuckled and crowed, capering like children, and went off with the tall man towards the galley, and Nutt, after an ineffectual attempt to speak (which threw him into a paroxysm of fury), presently followed them. The feast was _sui generis_. They found grease, baking powder, and flour, and made doughnuts; they hotted three tins of Julienne soup; they baked a great mass of salt pork on a bedding of white beans; they made a stew of preserved potatoes, Australian mutton, and _pâté de foie gras_; and, as a _chef d’œuvre_, one of the negroes turned out some crisp three-corned tartlets stuffed with strawberry jam. Then Hank, with a lamp in one hand, a cylinder of plates in the other, and a whole armory of knives and forks bristling from his pockets, pattered off to the main cabin to lay the table. At the doorway he stopped, gaping, and because the instinct of the much-hunted made his right hand slip round to a certain back pocket, the plates went to the ground with a crash. In the swivel-chair at the head of the table was huddled a man, a small man, with a cold cigar bitten tight between his teeth, a man so grimy with coal-dust that Hank couldn’t have sworn whether the short, peaked beard which rested on his chest was black or red or prussian-blue. “Oh, don’t you trouble to be polite,” said the man in the chair. “I’m mighty glad to see any one who can talk, or use a pair of hands.” Here he lifted his nose and sniffed the air like a hound. “Is that supper you’re cooking?” “I reckon.” “Found anything to wash it down with?” “There was a dozen bottles of beer, but we wanted those between whiles, and I guess they’re drunk.” “There should have been more, but I suppose my lousy steward has necked them. However, this is a big night, and this is the first time I’ve seen you and your mates, and so I guess champagne’ll be good enough for us. There’s a case in that end room ready a-purpose for this sort of celebration day. Perhaps you’ll fetch it out; I’m weak still.” Hank obeyed, wonderingly, and laid the table, and brought on the viands, in which he was assisted by Nutt and the blacks. Then Captain Kettle spoke again. “Oh, look here, friends, I’m not going to sit at table with niggers. I take it this isn’t a blessed missionary meeting.” It seemed as though there would be a row. One of the blacks stated his intention of taking no “sass from that po’ white trash,” and another openly drew a razor, and made suggestive motions with it through the air. “Of course,” said Kettle, “if you two gentlemen have chucked your color, and care to feed with those ornaments, you can do it. Only I’m a white man, and have my pride.” “That’s right,” said Nutt. “Picnicking on the sloop’s different. But this is a regular hotel supper, with napkins and a table-cloth, and I guess anything colored ’ud spoil the tone. Say s-s-s-sonnies, you mosey.” “I done cooked most this yer grub,” whined he of the razor, “an’ I’se gwine t’eat my belly-load.”