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“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’ what we can’t git at nohow, overboard you go!”That would make you short-handed,’ says Andy, with a grin. ‘Which is more’n you could say,’ says I, ‘if you’d chuck Tom an, me over’–alludin’ to his eleven-inch grip. Andy didn’t say no more then, but after a while he comes to me, as I was lookin’ round to see if anything was in sight, an’ says he, ‘I spose you ain’t got nothin’ to say ag’in’ my divin’ into the hold just aft of the foremast, where there seems to be a bit of pretty clear water, an’ see if I can’t git up somethin’?’ ‘You kin do it, if you like,’ says I, ‘but it’s at your own risk.

You can’t take out no insurance at this office.”All right, then,’ says Andy; ‘an’ if I git stove in by floatin’ boxes, you an’ Tom’ll have to eat the rest of them salt crackers.”Now, boy,’ says I,–an’ he wasn’t much more, bein’ only nineteen year old,–‘you’d better keep out o’ that hold. You’ll just git yourself smashed. An’ as to movin’ any of them there heavy boxes, which must be swelled up as tight as if they was part of the ship, you might as well try to pull out one of the Mary Auguster’s ribs.”I’ll try it,’ says Andy, ‘fur to-morrer is Christmas, an’ if I kin help it I ain’t goin’ to be floatin’ atop of a Christmas dinner without eatin’ any on it.’I let him go, fur he was a good swimmer an’ diver, an’ I did hope he might root out somethin’ or other, fur Christmas is about the worst day in the year fur men to be starvin’ on, an’ that’s what we was a-comin’ to.