COOK. The devil may cook for 'em for me--if I had any thing to cook--a parcel of frozen half-starv'd dogs. I should never be able to keep 'em out of the cook room, or their noses out of the slush-tub. BOATSWAIN. Damn your old smoky jaws, you're better off than any man aboard, your trouble will be nothing,--for I suppose they'll be disbursted in different messes among the Tories, and it's only putting on the big pot, cockey. Ha, ha, ha. COOK. What signifies, Mr. Boatswain, the big pot or the little pot, if there's nothing to cook? no fire, coal or wood to cook with? Blast my eyes, Mr. Boatswain, if I disgrease myself so much, I have had the honour, damn me (tho' I say it that shou'dn't say it) to be chief cook of a seventy-four gun ship, on board of which was Lord Abel-Marl and Admiral Poke-Cock. BOATSWAIN. Damn the liars--old singe-the-devil--you chief cook of a seventy-four gun ship, eigh? you the devil, you're as proud as hell, for all you look as old as Matheg'lum, hand a pair of silk stockings for our cook here, d' ye see--lash a handspike athwart his arse, get a ladle full of slush and a handful of brimstone for his hair, and step one of you Tories there for the devil's barber to come and shave and dress him. Ha, ha, ha. COOK. No, Mr. Boatswain, it's not pride--but look 'e (as I said before), I'll not disgrease my station, I'll throw up my commission, before I'll stand cook for a parcel of scape gallows, convict Tory dogs and run-away Negroes. BOATSWAIN. What's that you say? Take care, old frosty face--What? do you accuse his worship of turning kidnapper, and harbouring run-away Negroes?--Softly, or you'll be taken up for a Whig, and get a handsome coat of slush and hog's feathers for a christmas-box, cockey: Throw up your commission, eigh? throw up the pot-halliards, you mean, old piss-to-windward? Ha, ha, ha. COOK. I tell you, Mr. Boatswain--I-- BOATSWAIN. Come, come, give us a chaw of tobacco, Cook--blast your eyes, don't take any pride in what I say--I'm only joking, d' ye see---- COOK. Well, but Mr. Boatswain---- BOATSWAIN. Come, avast, belay the lanyards of your jaws, and let's have no more of it, d' ye see. [_BOATSWAIN pipes._] Make fast that boat along side there. [_Exeunt ev'ry man to his station._ SCENE IV. _LORD KIDNAPPER comes up on the quarter-deck._ KIDNAPPER. Well, my brave blacks, are you come to list? CUDJO. Eas, massa Lord, you preazee. KIDNAPPER. How many are there of you? CUDJO. Twenty-two, massa. KIDNAPPER. Very well, did you all run away from your masters? CUDJO. Eas, massa Lord, eb'ry one, me too. KIDNAPPER. That's clever; they have no right to make you slaves, I wish all the Negroes wou'd do the same, I'll make 'em free--what part did you come from? CUDJO. Disse brack man, disse one, disse one, disse one, disse one, come from Hamton, disse one, disse one, disse one, come from Nawfok, me come from Nawfok too. KIDNAPPER. Very well, what was your master's name?