old scraps of classical knowledge as the
ocean throws up shells.

"As for hunger, my appetite is sharper than a scythe; but my indigestion
is duller than a whetstone," said the mate, to whom a feast was always
prophetic of subsequent fasting.

"Good digestion waits on appetite; but waits too long, eh?" the judge
replied.

The captain led the way to the cabin. It was a low, dingy room, but
ruddy with the light of a dozen tallow candles. On the table was spread
a feast that would have tempted the palates of the epicures who gathered
about the festive board of the immortal Lucullus. There was neither art
nor display in the accompaniments of the food, but every luxury that an
ample market could supply had been prepared by a cook who could have won
immortality in a Paris restaurant, and the finest whisky that could be
distilled in old Kentucky, the rarest wines that could be imported from
the Rhine or from sunny Italian slopes, were ready to flow.

Four slaves received the banqueters and then took their places behind
the chairs at the table. The captain's face was shining like a full
moon; the doctor's was swarthy, sinister and piratical; the judge's
possessed the dignity of a splendid ruin; the mate's was haunted by an
expression of unsatisfied and insatiable desire. Observing it and
calling the attention of the others, the justice remarked, "Like the old
Romans, we have a skeleton at our table to remind us of death."

"You would look like death yourself if you had to sit staring at these
bounties like a muzzled dog in a market," snarled the mate.

"Be like the dyspeptic who was about to be hanged," said the doctor.
"The sheriff asked him to make his last request. 'I will have a dozen
hot waffles well b-b-buttered; and let there be a _full_ dozen, for I
shall not suffer from the cramps t-t-this time,' says he."

The first few courses of the feast were eaten in almost uninterrupted
silence; but as the keen edge of their appetites became a little dulled,
the tongues of the banqueters were unloosed and a torrent of talk began
to flow, interlarded with oaths and stories of a more than questionable
character. Corks popped from bottles with loud explosions, the darkies
greeted the sallies of wit with boisterous laughter and surreptitiously
emptied the glasses.

The fun grew fast and furious, the thoughts of the revelers flowing in
the usual channels of such feasts. At a certain pitch of this wild
frenzy, a desire for mu