Wilkins waited upon us with punctuality and civility. He would ask me what I wished for breakfast and dinner and supper, bringing little suggestions from the cook as to sea-pies and ship-board hashes and currant dumplings and other heavy dishes, for the due digestion of which a man needs to have bowels of brass and the triple rows of the shark’s fangs. Indeed, the _Lady Blanche’s_ larder was a poor one, and the genius of the first cook in the world must have come to a halt in the face of such a Mother Hubbard of a cupboard. Aft, there was little more to eat than the forecastle stores: salt beef and salt pork, peas, currants for duff days, biscuit, coffee and tea, and a few other items. However, the dead captain had laid in a good stock of bottled beer. There were also a few gallons of brandy and gin, both of them a very good spirit; and the forecastle stores, supplemented by cheese and hams and some tins of preserved stuff bearing the name of soup and bouilli—pronounced by sailors soup and bully, or soap and bullion—supplied us with dishes enough to enable us to support life and even health, helped out as they were by occasional little relishes from the cook, feeble attempts indeed, and briny to a degree, yet in their way welcome to people who were as good as beggars in food, and without choice. Lush faithfully kept to his end of the ship. He never offered to enter the cabin except to my invitation, when perhaps I would have something in navigation to tell him about. He seemed anxious to keep us at a distance, and picked up the ship’s routine, when his watch came round, as I let it fall, with an air of morose reserve. I made several efforts with an assumption of cheerfulness and heartiness of manner to break through his sullenness, with the dream of finding something like a human being of sensibilities behind it, whom I should be able to influence into getting the crew to consent to speak a passing ship, that Miss Temple might be transferred to her; but he was like a hedgehog; his quills regularly rose to my least approach. He would watch me with a sulky, cursing expression in his eye, or view me with a sour, askant regard, and to my civillest speech respond in some ragged, scurvy sentence. But I did not play an obliging part with him very long. Having come to the conclusion that he was a ruffian of immovable qualities, I recurred to my earlier behaviour, addressed him only to give him instructions in a peremptory manner, or to point out the ship’s place on the chart; so, as you will suppose, very little passed between us; yet my putting on the airs of a captain and treating him as the mere forecastle hand which he claimed to be, influenced his bearing, and rendered him even respectful.