rouble, Joe?' I asks quietly.

"'Trouble, yeh skunk,' he howls; 'our throats is hot as hell, all th'
skin's comin' off 'em; Bill Tomson's got his lips that blistered he
can't hold his pipe between 'em. What yeh been doin?'

"'Hold hard a jiffy,' I said, an' looks at what was left o' th' spice
I'd used. I nearly had a fit.

"'Go 'way,' I says, pullin' myself together; ''t ain't nuthin'.'

"An' it wasn't nuthin'; but there was such an almighty run on th' water
barrel that arternoon th' old man was beginnin' ter think a teetotal
revival had struck th' _Here at Last_. But though cayenne pepper drives
a chap ter water pretty often while th' effect lasts, it don't have no
permanent result, as th' old man found out. Course it was a mistake o'
mine; but ain't we all liable to go a bit astray?

"I'm jest givin' yeh these few examples t' show yeh that things wasn't
altogether O.K. 'tween me an' the crew. They was always swearin' at me,
an' callin' of me names, an' heavin' things at me head, because I'd done
or hadn't done suthin' or other. An angel from heaven wouldn't have
pleased 'em; an' as I never held much stock in the angelic trust yeh kin
easily understand we was most times very much at sixes an' sevens.

"One evenin' I was sittin' in th' fo'c's'le patiently listenin' ter th'
horrible language in which they reproached me because one o' 'em had
managed t' break a front tooth in biting a bit o' th' salt pork they'd
had for dinner, which was certainly no fault o' mine, when one of 'em,
an English chap he was, an' the worst grumbler of all, suddenly cries:

"'Jeerusalem, wouldn't I give somethin' fer a drop of beer just now.
Strike me pink if I ain't a'most forgotten what the taste o' it's like.'

"'Me, too,' said Harry Towers, the carpenter. 'A schooner o' lager an'
ale! Sakes! Wouldn't it jest sizzle down a day like this?'

"'My aunt! I'd give a month's pay f'r a quart,' the surly Britisher says
fiercely.

"'A quart, why don't yeh ask for a barrel while yeh're about it; then
I'd help yeh drink it,' I says.

"'Yer, yer blighted, perishin' idiot,' he shouts--it was him that'd
broken his tooth. 'What, waste good beer on yer that's fit fer nothin'
but cuttin' up into shark bait!'

"'That ain't th' way t' talk to a man as is always ready an' willin' t'
help yeh,' I says reproachfully.

"The chap glares at me like a tiger with the colic. His language was
awful. 'Lord 'elp us,' he finishes up with, 'why, yer've done n