University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

As You Like it.

No one thought of seeking his berth when all the passengers
were below. Some conversed in broken, half intelligible
dialogues, a few tried unavailingly to read, and
more sat looking at each other in silent misgivings, as the
gale howled through the cordage and spars, or among the
angles and bulwarks of the ship. Eve was seated on a
sofa in her own apartment, leaning on the breast of her
father, gazing silently through the open doors into the forward
cabin; for all idea of retiring within oneself, unless
it might be to secret prayer, was banished from the mind.
Even Mr. Dodge had forgotten the gnawings of envy, his
philanthropical and exclusive democracy, and, what was
perhaps more convincing still of his passing views of this
sublunary world, his profound deference for rank, as betrayed
in his strong desire to cultivate an intimacy with Sir
George Templemore. As for the baronet himself, he sat
by the cabin-table with his face buried in his hands, and
once he had been heard to express a regret that he had
ever embarked.

Saunders broke the moody stillness of this characteristic
party, with preparations for a supper. He took but one
end of the table for his cloth, and a single cover showed
that Captain Truck was about to dine, a thing he had not
yet done that day. The attentive steward had an eye to
his commander's tastes; for it is not often one sees a better
garnished board than was spread on this occasion, so far at
least as quantity was concerned. Besides the usual solids
of ham, corned-beef, and roasted shoat, there were carcasses
of ducks, pickled oysters—a delicacy almost peculiar to

America—and all the minor condiments of olives, anchovies,
dates, figs, almonds, raisins, cold potatoes, and puddings,
displayed in a single course, and arranged on the table
solely with regard to the reach of Captain Truck's arm.
Although Saunders was not quite without taste, he too well
knew the propensities of his superior to neglect any of these
important essentials, and great care was had, in particular,
so to dispose of everything as to render the whole so many
radii diverging from a common centre, which centre was
the stationary arm-chair that the master of the packet loved
to fill in his hours of ease.

“You will make many voyages, Mr. Toast,”—the steward
affectedly gave his subordinate, or as he was sometimes
facetiously called, the steward's mate, reason to understand,
when they had retired to the pantry to await the captain's
appearance—“before you accumulate all the niceties of a
gentleman's dinner. Every plat,” (Saunders had been in
the Havre line, where he had caught a few words of this
nature,) “every plat should be within reach of the convive's
arm, and particularly if it happen to be Captain Truck, who
has a great awersion to delays at his diet. As for the
entremets, they may be scattered miscellaneously with the
salt and the mustard, so that they can come with facility in
their proper places.”

“I don't know what an entremet is,” returned the subordinate,
“and I exceedingly desire, sir, to receive my orders
in such English as a gentleman can diwine.”

“An entremet, Mr. Toast, is a mouthful thrown in promiscuously
between the reliefs of the solids. Now, suppose
a gentleman begins on pig; when he has eaten enough
of this, he likes a little brandy and water, or a glass of
porter, before he cuts into the beef; and while I'm mixing
the first, or starting the cork, he refreshes himself with an
entremet, such as a wing of a duck, or perhaps a plate of
pickled oysters. You must know that there is great odds
in passengers; one set eating and jollifying, from the hour
we sail till the hour we get in, while another takes the ocean
as it might be sentimentally.”

“Sentimentally, sir! I s'pose those be they as uses the
basins uncommon?”

“That depends on the weather. I've known a party

not eat as much as would set one handsome table in a week,
and then, when they conwalesced, it was intimidating how
they dewoured. It makes a great difference, too, whether
the passengers acquiesce well together or not, for agreeable
feelings give a fine appetite. Lovers make cheap passengers
always.”

“That is extr'or'nary, for I thought such as they was
always hard to please, with every thing but one another.”

“You never were more mistaken. I've seen a lover
who couldn't tell a sweet potato from an onion, or a canvas-back
from an old wife. But of all mortals in the way of
passengers, the bag-man or go-between is my greatest animosity.
These fellows will sit up all night, if the captain
consents, and lie abed next day, and do nothing but drink
in their berths. Now, this time we have a compliable set,
and on the whole, it is quite a condescension and pleasure
to wait on them.”

“Well, I think, Mr. Saunders, they isn't alike as much
as they might be nother.”

“Not more so than wenison and pig. Perfectly correct,
sir; for this cabin is a lobskous as regards deportment and
character. I set all the Effinghams down as tip-tops, or,
A No. 1, as Mr. Leach calls the ship; and then Mr. Sharp
and Mr. Blunt are quite the gentlemen. Nothing is easier,
Mr. Toast, than to tell a gentleman; and as you have set
up a new profession,—in which I hope, for the credit of the
colour, you will be prosperous,—it is well worth your while
to know how this is done, especially as you need never
expect much from a passenger, that is not a true gentleman,
but trouble. There is Mr. John Effingham, in particular;
his man says he never anticipates change, and if a coat
confines his arm, he repudiates it on the spot.”

“Well, it must be a satisfaction to serve such a companion.
I think Mr. Dodge, sir, quite a feller.”

“Your taste, Toast, is getting to be observable, and by
cultivating it, you will soon be remarkable for a knowledge
of mankind. Mr. Dodge, as you werry justly insinuate, is
not werry refined, or particularly well suited to figure in
genteel society.”

“And yet he seems attached to it, Mr. Saunders, for he

has purposed to establish five or six societies since we
sailed.”

“Werry true, sir; but then every society is not genteel.
When we get back to New York, Toast, I must see and
get you into a better set than the one you occupied when
we sailed. You will not do yet for our circle, which is altogether
conclusive; but you might be elevated. Mr. Dodge
has been electioneering with me, to see if we cannot inwent
a society among the steerage-passengers for the abstinence
of liquors, and another for the perpetration of the morals
and religious principles of our forefathers. As for the first,
Toast, I told him it was sufficiently indurable to be confined
in a hole like the steerage, without being percluded from the
consolation of a little drink; and as for the last, it appeared
to me that such a preposition inwolwed an attack on liberty
of conscience.”

“There you give'd him, sir, quite as good as he sent,”
returned the steward's mate, chuckling, or perhaps sniggering
would be a word better suited to his habits of cachinnation,
“and I should have been glad to witness his confusion.
It seems to me, Mr. Saunders, that Mr. Dodge
loves to get up his societies in support of liberty and religion,
that he may predominate over both by his own
inwentions.”

Saunders laid his long yellow finger on the broad flat
nose of his mate, with an air of approbation, as he replied,

“Toast, you have hit his character as pat as I touch
your Roman. He is a man fit to make proselytes among
the wulgar and Irish,”—the Hibernian peasant and the
American negro are sworn enemies—“but quite unfit for
anything respectable or decent. Were it not for Sir George,
I would scarcely descend to clean his state-room.”

“What is your sentiments, Mr. Saunders, respecting Sir
George?”

“Why, Sir George is a titled gentleman, and of course
is not to be strictured too freely. He has complimented me
already with a sovereign, and apprised me of his intention
to be more particular when we get in.”

“I feel astonished such a gentleman should neglect to
insure a state-room to his own convenience.”

“Sir George has elucidated all that in a conversation we
had in his room, soon after our acquaintance commenced.
He is going to Canada on public business, and sailed at an
hour's interval. He was too late for a single room, and his
own man is to follow with most of his effects by the next
ship. Oh! Sir George may be safely put down as respectable
and liberalized, though thrown into disparagement perhaps
by forty circumstances.”

Mr. Saunders, who had run his vocabulary hard in this
conversation, meant to say “fortuitous;” and Toast thought
that so many circumstances might well reduce a better man
to a dilemma. After a moment of thought, or what in his
orbicular shining features he fancied passed for thought, he
said,—

“I seem to diwine, Mr. Saunders, that the Effinghams
do not much intimate Sir George.”

Saunders looked out of the pantry-door to reconnoitre,
and finding the sober quiet already described reigning, he
opened a drawer, and drew forth a London newspaper.

“To treat you with the confidence of a gentleman in a
situation as respectable and responsible as the one you occupy,
Mr. Toast,” he said, “a little ewent has transpired in
my presence yesterday, that I thought sufficiently particular
to be designated by retaining this paper. Mr. Sharp and
Sir George happened to be in the cabin together, alone, and
the last, as it suggested to me, Toast, was desirous of removing
some of the haughter of the first, for you may have
observed that there has been no conversation between any
of the Effinghams, or Mr. Blunt, or Mr. Sharp, and the
baronet; and so to break the ice of his haughter, as it might
be, Sir George says, `Really, Mr. Sharp, the papers have
got to be so personally particular, that one cannot run into
the country for a mouthful of fresh air that they don't
record it. Now, I thought not a soul knew of my departure
for America, and yet here you see they have mentioned it,
with more particulars than are agreeable.' On concluding,
Sir George gave Mr. Sharp this paper, and indicated this here
paragraph. Mr. Sharp perused it, laid down the paper, and
retorted coldly, `It is indeed quite surprising, sir; but impudence
is a general fault of the age.' And then he left

the cabin solus. Sir George was so wexed, he went into
his state-room and forgot the paper, which fell to the
steward, you know, on a principle laid down in Wattel,
Toast.”

Here the two worthies indulged in a smothered merriment
of their own at the expense of their commander; for
though a dignified man in general, Mr. Saunders could
laugh on occasion, and according to his own opinion of
himself he danced particularly well.

“Would you like to read the paragraph, Mr. Toast?”

“Quite unnecessary, sir; your account will be perfectly
legible and satisfactory.”

By this touch of politeness, Mr. Toast, who knew as
much of the art of reading as a monkey commonly knows
of mathematics, got rid of the awkwardness of acknowledging
the careless manner in which he had trifled with his
early opportunities. Luckily, Mr. Saunders, who had been
educated as a servant in a gentleman's family, was better
off, and as he was vain of all his advantages, he was particularly
pleased to have an opportunity of exhibiting them.
Turning to the paragraph he read the following lines, in
that sort of didactic tone and elaborate style with which
gentlemen who commence the graces after thirty are a little
apt to make bows:

“We understand Sir George Templemore, Bart., the
member for Boodleigh, is about to visit our American colonies,
with a view to make himself intimately acquainted
with the merits of the unpleasant questions by which they
are just now agitated, and with the intention of entering
into the debates in the house on that interesting subject on
his return. We believe that Sir George will sail in the
packet of the first from Liverpool, and will return in time
to be in his seat after the Easter holidays. His people and
effects left town yesterday by the Liverpool coach. During
the baronet's absence, his country will be hunted by Sir
Gervaise de Brush, though the establishment at Templemore
Hall will be kept up.”

“How came Sir George here, then?” Mr. Toast very
naturally inquired.

“Having been kept too late in London, he was obliged

to come this way or to be left. It is sometimes as close
work to get the passengers on board, Mr. Toast, as to get
the people. I have often admired how gentlemen and ladies
love procrastinating, when dishes that ought to be taken
hot, are getting to be quite insipid and uneatable.”

“Saunders!” cried the hearty voice of Captain Truck,
who had taken possession of what he called his throne in
the cabin. All the steward's elegant diction and finish of
demeanour vanished at the well-known sound, and thrusting
his head out of the pantry-door, he gave the prompt
ship-answer to a call,

“Ay, ay, sir!”

“Come, none of your dictionary in the pantry there, but
show your physiognomy in my presence. What the devil
do you think Vattel would say to such a supper as this?”

“I think, sir, he would call it a werry good supper, for
a ship in a hard gale of wind. That's my honest opinion,
Captain Truck, and I never deceive any gentleman in a
matter of food. I think, Mr. Wattel would approve of that
there supper, sir.”

“Perhaps he might, for he has made blunders as well as
another man. Go, mix me a glass of just what I love,
when I've not had a drop all day. Gentlemen, will any of
you honour me, by sharing in a cut? This beef is not indigestible,
and here is a real Marylander, in the way of a
ham. No want of oakum to fill up the chinks with, either.”

Most of the gentlemen were too full of the gale to wish
to eat; besides they had not fasted like Captain Truck
since morning. But Mr. Monday, the bagman, as John
Effingham had termed him, and who had been often enough
at sea to know something of its varieties, consented to take
a glass of brandy and water, as a corrective of the Madeira
he had been swallowing. The appetite of Captain Truck
was little affected by the state of the weather, however; for
though too attentive to his duties to quit the deck until he
had ascertained how matters were going on, now that he
had fairly made up his mind to eat, he set about it with a
heartiness and simplicity that proved his total disregard of
appearances when his hunger was sharp. For some time
he was too much occupied to talk, making regular attacks

upon the different plats, as Mr. Saunders called them,
without much regard to the cookery or the material. The
only pauses were to drink, and this was always done with
a steadiness that never left a drop in the glass. Still Mr.
Truck was a temperate man; for he never consumed more
than his physical wants appeared to require, or his physical
energies knew how to dispose of. At length, however,
he came to the steward's entrements, or he began to stuff
what he, himself, had called “oakum,” into the chinks of
his dinner.

Mr. Sharp had watched the whole process from the ladies'
cabin, as indeed had Eve, and thinking this a favourable
occasion to ascertain the state of things on deck, the former
came into the main-cabin, commissioned by the latter, to
make the inquiry.

“The ladies are desirous of knowing where we are, and
what is the state of the gale, Captain Truck,” said the gentleman,
when he had seated himself near the throne.

“My dear young lady,” called out the captain, by way
of cutting short the diplomacy of employing ambassadors
between them, “I wish in my heart I could persuade you
and Mademoiselle V. A. V., (for so he called the governess,
in imitation of Eve's pronunciation of her name,) to try a
few of these pickled oysters; they are as delicate as yourselves,
and worthy to be set before a mermaid, if there
were any such thing.”

“I thank you for the compliment, Captain Truck, and
while I ask leave to decline it, I beg leave to refer you to
the plenipotentiary Mademoiselle Viefville” (Eve would not
say herself) “has intrusted with her wishes.”

“Thus you perceive, sir,” interposed Mr. Sharp again,
“you will have to treat with me, by all the principles laid
down by Vattel.”

“And treat you, too, my good sir. Let me persuade
you to try a slice of this anti-abolitionist,” laying his knife
on the ham, which he still continued to regard himself with
a sort of melancholy interest. “No? well, I hold over-persuasion
as the next thing to neglect. I am satisfied, sir,
after all, as Saunders says, that Vattel himself, unless more
unreasonable at his grub than in matters of state, would be

a happier man after he had been at his table twenty minutes,
than before he sat down.”

Mr. Sharp perceiving that it was idle to pursue his inquiry
while the other was in one of his discursive humours,
determined to let things take their course, and fell into the
captain's own vein.

“If Vattel would approve of the repast, few men ought
to repine at their fortune in being so well provided.”

“I flatter myself, sir, that I understand a supper, espepecially
in a gale of wind, as well as Mr. Vattel, or any
other man could do.”

“And yet Vattel was one of the most celebrated cooks
of his day.”

Captain Truck stared, looked his grave companion
steadily in the eye, for he was too much addicted to mystifying,
not to distrust others, and picked his teeth with
redoubled vigilance.

“Vattel a cook! This is the first I ever heard of it.”

“There was a Vattel, in a former age, who stood at the
head of his art as a cook; this I can assure you, on my
honour: he may not have been your Vattel, however.”

“Sir, there never were two Vattels. This is extraordinary
news to me, and I scarcely know how to receive it.”

“If you doubt my information, you may ask any of the
other passengers. Either of the Mr. Effinghams, or Mr.
Blunt, or Miss Effingham, or Mademoiselle Viefville will
confirm what I tell you, I think; especially the latter, for
he was her countryman.”

Hereupon Captain Truck began to stuff in the oakum
again, for the calm countenance of Mr. Sharp produced an
effect; and as he was pondering on the consequences of his
oracle's turning out to be a cook, he thought it not amiss to
be eating, as it were, incidentally. After swallowing a
dozen olives, six or eight anchovies, as many pickled oysters,
and raisins and almonds, as the advertisements say à
polonté, he suddenly struck his fist on the table, and announced
his intention of putting the question to both the
ladies.

“My dear young lady,” he called out, “will you do me
the honour to say whether you ever heard of a cook of the
name of Vattel?”

Eve laughed, and her sweet tones were infectious amid
the dull howling of the gale, which was constantly heard in
the cabins, like a bass accompaniment, or the distant roar
of a cataract among the singing of birds.

“Certainly, captain,” she answered; “Mr. Vattel was
not only a cook, but perhaps the most celebrated on record,
for sentiment at least, if not for skill.”

“I make no doubt the man did his work well, let him be
set about what he might; and, mademoiselle, he was a
countryman of yours, they tell me?”

“Assurement, Monsieur Vattel has left more distinguished
souvenirs than any other cook in France.”

Captain Truck turned quickly to the elated and admiring
Saunders, who felt his own glory enhanced by this important
discovery, and said in that short-hand way he had of
expressing himself to the chief of the pantry,

“Do you hear that, sir; see and find out what they are,
and dress me a dish of these souvenirs as soon as we get
in. I dare say they are to be had at the Fulton market,
and mind while there to look out for some tongues and
sounds. I've not made half a supper to-night, for the want
of them. I dare say these souvenirs are capital eating, if
Monsieur Vattel thought so highly of them. Pray, mademoiselle,
is the gentleman dead?”

“Hélas, oui! How could he live with a sword run through
his body?”

“Ha! killed in a duel, I declare; died fighting for his
principles, if the truth were known! I shall have a double
respect for his opinion, for this is the touchstone of a man's
honesty. Mr. Sharp, let us take a glass of Geissenheimer
to his memory; we might honour a less worthy man.”

As the captain poured out the liquor, a fall of several
tons of water on the deck shook the entire ship, and one of
the passengers in the hurricane-house, opening a door to
ascertain the cause, the sound of the hissing waters and of
the roaring winds came fresher and more distinct into the
cabin. Mr. Truck cast an eye at the tell-tale over his head
to ascertain the course of the ship, and paused just an instant,
and then tossed off his wine.

“This hint reminds me of my mission,” Mr. Sharp rejoined.

“The ladies desire to know your opinion of the
state of the weather?”

“I owe them an answer, if it were only in gratitude for
the hint about Vattel. Who the devil would have supposed
the man ever was a cook! But these Frenchmen are not
like the rest of mankind, and half the nation are cooks, or
live by food, in some way or other.”

“And very good cooks, too, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said
Mademoiselle Viefville. “Monsieur Vattel did die for the
honour of his art. He fell on his own sword, because the
fish did not arrive in season for the dinner of the king.”

Captain Truck looked more astonished than ever. Then
turning short round to the steward, he shook his head and
exclaimed,

“Do you hear that, sir? How often would you have
died, if a sword had been run through you every time the
fish was forgotten, or was too late? Once, to a dead certainty,
about these very tongues and sounds.”

“But the weather?” interrupted Mr. Sharp.

“The weather, my dear sir; the weather, my dear ladies,
is very good weather, with the exception of winds and
waves, of which unfortunately there are, just now, more of
both than we want. The ship must scud, and as we go
like a race-horse, without stopping to take breath, we may
see the Canary Islands before the voyage is over. Of danger
there is none in this ship, as long as we can keep clear
of the land, and in order that this may be done, I will just
step into my state-room, and find out exactly where we are.”

On receiving this information, the passengers retired for
the night, Captain Truck setting about his task in good earnest.
The result of his calculations showed that they would
run westward of Madeira, which was all he cared about
immediately, intending always to haul up to his course on
the first good occasion.