gs, that the idee of a pile of money was mighty temptin'
to a feller like me, who had a girl at home ready to marry him, and who
would like nothin' better'n to have a little house of his own, an' a
little vessel of his own, an' give up the other side of the world
altogether. But while I was goin' over all this in my mind, an'
wonderin' if the cap'n ever could git us into port, along comes Andy
Boyle, an' sits down beside me. `It drives me pretty nigh crazy,' says
he, `to think that to-morrer's Christmas, an' we've got to feed on that
sloppy stuff we fished out of our stores, an' not much of it, nuther,
while there's all that roast turkey an' plum-puddin' an' mince-pie
a-floatin' out there just afore our eyes, an' we can't have none of
it.' `You hadn't oughter think so much about eatin', Andy,' says
I,`but if I was talkin' about them things I wouldn't leave out canned
peaches. By George! On a hot Christmas like this is goin' to be, I'd
be the jolliest Jack on the ocean if I could git at that canned fruit.'
`Well, there's a way,' says Andy, `that we might git some of 'em. A
part of the cargo of this ship is stuff far blastin' rocks--ca'tridges,
'lectric bat'ries, an' that sort of thing; an' there's a man aboard
who's goin' out to take charge of 'em. I've been talkin' to this
bat'ry man, an' I've made up my mind it'll be easy enough to lower a
little ca'tridge down among our cargo an' blow out a part of it.' `What
'u'd be the good of it,' says I, `blowed into chips?' `It might smash
some,' says he, `but others would be only loosened, an' they'd float up
to the top, where we could git 'em, specially them as was packed with
pies, which must be pretty light.' `Git out, Andy,' says I, `with all
that stuff!' An' he got out.

"But the idees he'd put into my head didn't git out, an' as I laid on
my back on the deck, lookin' up at the stars, they sometimes seemed to
put themselves into the shape of a little house, with a little woman
cookin' at the kitchin fire, an' a little schooner layin' at anchor
just off shore. An' then ag'in they'd hump themselves up till they
looked like a lot of new tin cans with their tops off, an' all kinds of
good things to eat inside, specially canned peaches--the big white
kind, soft an' cool, each one split in half, with a holler in the
middle filled with juice. By George, sir! the very thought of a tin
can like that made me beat my heels ag'in the deck. I'd been mighty
hungry, an' had e