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