minutes," and the ancient mariner looked at me with careful
impressiveness.

"Bad, eh?" I inquired.

"Sh'd think it was--for them poor chaps."

"Didn't turn your hair white, Uncle?"

"Gue-e-ss not," and the ancient mariner had a fit of chuckling that
nearly choked him.

When he recovered he told me the yarn. I had heard several of old
Steve's yarns, and I considered that his fine talents were miserably
wasted; he ought to have been a politician or a real estate agent. This
yarn, however, might very well have been true.

"It was 'bout nineteen years ago," Steve commenced, "an' I'd jest taken
up a job as cook on the _Here at Last_, a blamed old Noah's Ark of a
wind-jammer from New York to Jamaica. She did th' trip in 'bout th' same
time as yeh'd walk it. She was a beauty--an' th' crew 'bout fitted her.
Where th' old man had gathered 'em from th' Lord on'y knows; but they
was th' most difficult lot I've ever sailed with, which is sayin' a deal
consid'rin' that, man an' boy, I've been a sailor for forty years. They
was as contrairy as women, an' as stoopid as donkeys. I couldn't do
nothin' right for 'em. They complained of the coffee, grumbled at th'
biscuit, an' swore terrible at th' meat. But most of all they swore at
me."

"'It all lies in th' cookin',' an old one-eyed chap, named Barton, used
ter say. 'Any cook that is worth his salt can do wonders wi' th' worst
vittles'; an' he told me how he'd once sailed with a cook as c'd make a
stewed cat taste better'n a rabbit. An', durn me, when I went ashore
next, an' at great risk managed to lay holt of a big tom and cooked it
for em, hopin' to please 'em, an' went inter th' fo'c's'le arter dinner
an' told 'em what I'd done, ef that self-same chap, Barton, didn't hit
me over th' head wi' his tin can for tryin' ter poison 'em, as he said.
They complained to th' old man, too, which was worse; for when we got t'
th' next port my leave ashore was stopped, an' all for tryin' to please
'em. Rank ingratitood, I call it.

"Another time I tried to give the junk--it really was bad, but as I hadn't
bought th' stores, that wasn't no fault o' mine--a bit of a more
pleasant flavor by bilin' with it a packet o' spice I found in th'
skipper's cabin. One o' th' sailors comes into my galley in a towerin'
rage arter dinner.

"'Yer blamed rascal,' he said, an' there was suthin' like murder in his
starin' eyes. 'Yeh blamed rascal, whatcher been doin' ter our grub now?'

"'What's th' t