I have said little about the cook, who was so kind to me the first morning at sea. He was always pleasant and obliging, and he used to say that he only regretted that he couldn’t prepare for me some nice little bits like those my mother used to cook for me at home. One day I said to him: “Why is it that you scrape out the plates so carefully and then put the scrapings into a big cask? Why don’t you throw them overboard?” “Because I’m a money getter. Don’t you know what slush is? Why, it’s the scrapings of the plates. I’ve heard it said that they use it on some ships to slush the masts with. Not on this vessel—worth too much. I put it in casks and there it stays till end of the voyage. It don’t rot, gets sweeter all the time. When voyage is over, sold to be made over, and out comes beautiful, rich lard. Goes to the best restaurants and brings big prices. I get my lay in the slush.” “I never heard of such a thing,” I declared. “I make out of it in another way,” he continued. “How’s that?” “Why, I scrape the plates so carefully that often they don’t need washin’; so I save labor.” All this was said seriously; and I have to say that I was not disturbed. I thought it a joke that the rich should regard as a luxury what we poor sailors discarded as worthless. And then I thought that, if the story had been told to me before I left my father’s roof, I should have been inclined to disbelieve it. The cook continued: “Now that we’ve got fresh stuff on board, let me tell you this. You know that the cabin gets the best, the steerage, where the under officers, boat-steerers and carpenter eat, next best, and the forecastle last. Nevertheless, you folks will get some of it, and I’ll do my best to make it taste right. Now let me tell you that in this warm weather the forecastle is no place to eat in, so I’ve asked Lakeum to let me serve the boys on deck, and he’s given his consent, and this will be done so long as the weather’s warm. After that back to the forecastle. You boys will sit on hatch and windlass, and I’ll serve the food in a new way. There’ll be two tubs, one of them called the meat kit, into which I’ll dump the boiled meat, and a second, without any name, into which I’ll dump the vegetables. Then every man will help himself. Coffee in the mornin’ and tea at night, I’ll serve in buckets. The fruit they let the boys have they can eat as they please, so long as it lasts.” The adoption of this new method seemed to cheer the men up. One advantage was that we were disposed to converse more than we did in the gloomy forecastle, and pleasantries were indulged in. The good manners noticeable in the forecastle were not discarded on deck. Food may not have been partaken of according to the requirements of polite society, but each had due regard for the rights of others, and there was no sign of greediness.