'I knew a skipper,' said the cook, lounging half out of the galley-door, and plunging into the conversation a little irrelevantly, 'who used to talk to his ship and his masts as if they was alive. He'd look up at his maintaws'l, and say: "D'ye think you could stand it if I shook a single reef out of yer? Why, then, all right"; and then he'd bawl out the order to the men. Next he'd step back right aft, paying no heed to the fellow at the wheel, and looking aloft, would say to his mizzen taws'l, "I think a reef can come out of you, too. Does the mast feel equal to the strain, d'ye think? Why, then, my lads, jump aloft, and shake a reef out of the mizzen taws'l." He was a queer dawg,' continued the cook--'fat as a slug, and as long in seeing a thing as a balloon's in falling.' Seeing the captain looking, he slunk back to his coppers. Presently the pea-soup and pork were ready, the kids were filled, and the hands went to dinner. They sat on sea-chests, the kids were upon the deck, and the sailors plunged their sheath-knives into the pale, fat lumps of meat, and took what they wanted, a few using tin dishes, and some ship's biscuit, as trenchers. 'Blast me!' after a grim silence, presently exclaims James Jones, who had shipped as boatswain and carpenter, 'if I don't think the Dutchman has sneaked us aboard on the cheap. This here's no food for a man.' He held aloft a morsel of pork, and squinted up at it. 'Yer taste'll grow,' said a sailor, with a sullen laugh. 'The flavour of roast beef ain't out of your mouth yet, Jim.' 'He'll be a mean cuss,' said the boatswain, continuing to squint dangerously at the piece of pork, 'if it's to be no better than this.' 'Here's the yarn of the meanest thing that ever was read of in books,' said a seaman named Mike Scott. 'A man once said to me: "When I was a boy, I stood at my father's gate, with a kitten on my shoulder. A man on horseback stops and says: 'I likes to see little boys kind to animals. Here's a farden for ye, sonny.'" And with that he gives him a button, and then rides off. Who was it, d'ye think? Why, the Dook o' Vellington.' 'Not a vord agin the Dook. He's my godfather,' said a man. 'I'm a-going to complain of this meat,' said the boatswain, starting up. Retaining the piece on the end of his knife, he stepped out of the house, and walked aft.