Now I heard voices, but the only words I could distinguish were in the cook's deep drawl. "Yass, sah, yass, sah. Ah brought yo' coffee, sah, Yass, sah, Ah'll wait fo' yo' cup, sah." Next came Kipping's step--a mild step, if there is such a thing; even in his bullying the man was mild. Then came the slow, heavy tread of the returning African. Flicking the canvas off me, he muttered, "All's cleah fo' you to git away, boy. How you done come to git in dis yeh scrape sho' am excruciatin'. You just go 'long with you while dey's a chanst." So, carrying with me the very unimportant discovery that I had made, I ran cautiously forward, away from the place where I had no business to be. When, in the morning, just before eight bells, I was sent to the galley with the empty kids, I found the worthy cook in a solemn mood. "You boy," he said, fixing on me a stare, which his deeply graven frown rendered the more severe, "you boy, what you think you gwine do, prowlin' round all hours? Hey? You tell dis nigger dat. Heah Ah's been and put you onto all de ropes and give you more infohmative disco'se about ships and how to behave on 'em dan eveh Ah give a green hand befo' in all de years Ah been gwine to sea, and heah you's so tarnation foolish as go prowlin' round de quarter-deck whar you's like to git skun alive if Mistah Falk ketches you." I don't remember what I replied, but I am sure it was flippant; to the day of my death I shall never forget the stinging, good-natured cuff with which the cook knocked my head against the wall. "Sho' now," he growled, "go 'long!" I was not yet ready to go. "Tell me, doctor," I said, "does the second mate get on well with the others in the cabin?" The title mollified him somewhat, but he still felt that he must uphold the dignity of his office. "Sho' now, what kind of a question is dat fo' a ship's boy to be askin' de cook?" He glanced at me suspiciously, then challenged me directly, "Who put dose idea' in yo' head?" By the tone of the second question, which was quite too straightforward to be confused with the bantering that we usually exchanged, I knew that he was willing, if diplomatically coaxed, to talk frankly. I then said cautiously, "Every one thinks so, but you're the only man forward that's likely to know." "Now ain't dat jest like de assumptivity of dem dah men in de forecastle. How'd Ah know dat kind of contraptiveness, tell me?" Looking closely at me he began to rattle his pans at a great rate while I waited in silence. He was not accomplishing much; indeed, he really was throwing things into a state of general disorder. But I observed that he was working methodically round the galley toward where I stood, until at last he bumped into me and started as if he hadn't known that I was there at all.