pain. The cook, who was called "the doctor" by the crew, "Tommy"
by the hunters, and "Cooky" by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person.
The difference worked in my status brought about a corresponding
difference in treatment from him. Servile and fawning as he had
been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose. In truth, I
was no longer the fine gentleman with a skin soft as a "lydy's,"
but only an ordinary and very worthless cabin-boy.

He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and
his behaviour and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my
duties. Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state-
rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my
colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or
washing greasy pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder
to him. He refused to take into consideration what I was, or,
rather, what my life and the things I was accustomed to had been.
This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I
confess, ere the day was done, that I hated him with more lively
feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before.

This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that
the Ghost, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn
till later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an
"'owlin' sou'-easter." At half-past five, under his directions, I
set the table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and
then carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley. In this
connection I cannot forbear relating my first experience with a
boarding sea.

"Look sharp or you'll get doused," was Mr. Mugridge's parting