n' you two has got
to keep your minds on that, an' obey orders.' If Davy Jones was to do
all that Tom Simmons said when he heared this, the old chap would be
kept busier than he ever was yit. But I let him growl his growl out,
knowin' he'd come round all right, fur there wasn't no help fur it,
consid'rin' Andy an' me was two to his one. Pretty soon we all went to
work, an' got up a spar from below, which we rigged to the stump of the
foremast, with Andy's shirt atop of it.

"Them sea-soaked, sun-dried biscuit was pretty mean prog, as you might
think, but we eat so many of 'em that afternoon, an' 'cordingly drank
so much water, that I was obliged to put us all on short rations the
next day. `This is the day afore Christmas,' says Andy Boyle, `an'
to-night will be Christmas eve, an' it's pretty tough fur us to be
sittin' here with not even so much hardtack as we want, an' all the
time thinkin' that the hold of this ship is packed full of the gayest
kind of good things to eat.' `Shut up about Christmas!' says Tom
Simmons. `Them two youngsters of mine, up in Bangor, is havin' their
toes and noses pretty nigh froze, I 'spect, but they'll hang up their
stockin's all the same to-night, never thinkin' that their dad's bein'
cooked alive on a empty stomach.' `Of course they wouldn't hang 'em
up,' says I, if they knowed what a fix you was in, but they don't know
it, an' what's the use of grumblin' at 'em fur bein' a little jolly?'
`Well,' says Andy `they couldn't be more jollier than I'd be if I could
git at some of them fancy fixin's down in the hold. I worked well on
to a week at 'Frisco puttin' in them boxes, an' the names of the things
was on the outside of most of 'em; an' I tell you what it is, mates, it
made my mouth water, even then, to read 'em, an' I wasn't hungry,
nuther, havin' plenty to eat three times a day. There was roast beef,
an' roast mutton, an' duck, an' chicken, an' soup, an' peas, an' beans,
an' termaters, an' plum-puddin', an' mince-pie--' `Shut up with your
mince-pie!' sung out Tom Simmons. `Isn't it enough to have to gnaw on
these salt chips, without hearin' about mince-pie?' `An' more'n that'
says Andy, `there was canned peaches, an' pears, an' plums, an'
cherries.'

"Now these things did sound so cool an' good to me on that br'ilin'
deck that I couldn't stand it, an' I leans over to Andy, an' I says:
`Now look-a here; if you don't shut up talkin' about them things what's
stowed below, an'