unprecedented thing, I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the
cook; but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or
three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge
good-naturedly, and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of
the poop and chatted with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it
was over, and Mugridge was back in the galley, he became greasily
radiant, and went about his work, humming coster songs in a nerve-
racking and discordant falsetto.

"I always get along with the officers," he remarked to me in a
confidential tone. "I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreci-
yted. There was my last skipper--w'y I thought nothin' of droppin'
down in the cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass.
'Mugridge,' sez 'e to me, 'Mugridge,' sez 'e, 'you've missed yer
vokytion.' 'An' 'ow's that?' sez I. 'Yer should 'a been born a
gentleman, an' never 'ad to work for yer livin'.' God strike me
dead, 'Ump, if that ayn't wot 'e sez, an' me a-sittin' there in 'is
own cabin, jolly-like an' comfortable, a-smokin' 'is cigars an'
drinkin' 'is rum."

This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a
voice I hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile
and his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I
was all in a tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and
loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his cooking was
indescribable; and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard,
I was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection,
choosing from the least dirty of his concoctions.

My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work.