"When it comes time to close down the claim, the boy is sick with
the fever an' the only ship in port is a Point Barrow whaler,
bound for Seattle. After I book our passage, I find they have
nothin' aboard to eat except canned salmon, it bein' the end of a
two years' cruise, so when I land in the States after seventeen
days of a fish diet, I am what you might call sated with canned
grub, and have added salmon to the list of things concernin' which
I am goin' to economize.

"Soon's ever I get the boy into a hospital, I gallop up to the
best restarawnt in town an' prepare for the huge pot-latch. This
here, I determine, is to be a gormandizin' jag which shall live in
hist'ry, an' wharof in later years the natives of Puget Sound
shall speak with bated breath.

"First, I call for five dollars' worth of pork an' beans an' then
a full-grown platter of canned salmon. When the waiter lays 'em
out in front of me, I look them vittles coldly in their disgustin'
visages, an' say in sarcastic accents:

"'Set there, damn you! an' watch me eat REAL grub,' which I
proceed to do, cleanin' the menu from soda to hock. When I have
done my worst, I pile bones an' olive seeds an' peelin's all over
them articles of nourishment, stick toothpicks into 'em, an'
havin' offered 'em what other indignities occur to me, I leave the
place."

Dextry and the girl were leaning over the stern-rail, chatting
idly in the darkness. It was the second night out and the ship lay
dead in the ice-pack. All about them was a flat, floe-clogged sea,