at a lot of salt pork, wet an' raw, an' now the very
idee of it, even cooked, turned my stomach. I looked up to the stars
ag'in, an' the little house an' the little schooner was clean gone, an'
the whole sky was filled with nothin' but bright new tin cans.

"In the mornin' Andy he come to me ag'in. `Have you made up your
mind,' says he, `about gittin' some of them good things fur Christmas
dinner?' `Confound you!' says I, `you talk as if all we had to do was
to go an' git 'em.' `An' that's what I b'lieve we kin do,' says he,
`with the help of that bat'ry man.' `Yes,' says I, `an' blow a lot of
the cargo into flinders, an' damage the Mary Auguster so's she couldn't
never be took into port.' An' then I told him what the cap'n had said
to me, an' what I was goin' to do with the money. `A little
ca'tridge,' says Andy, `would do all we want, an' wouldn't hurt the
vessel, nuther. Besides that, I don't b'lieve what this cap'n says
about tinkerin' up his engine. 'Tain't likely he'll ever git her
runnin' ag'in, nor pump out the Mary Auguster, nuther. If I was you
I'd a durned sight ruther have a Christmas dinner in hand than a house
an' wife in the bush.' `I ain't thinkin' o' marryin' a girl in
Australier,' says I. An' Andy he grinned, an' said I wouldn't marry
nobody if I had to live on sp'iled vittles till I got her.

"A little arter that I went to the cap'n an' I told him about Andy's
idee, but he was down on it. `It's your vessel, an' not mine,' says
he, `an' if you want to try to git a dinner out of her I'll not stand
in your way. But it's my 'pinion you'll just damage the ship, an' do
nothin'.' Howsomdever, I talked to the bat'ry man about it, an' he
thought it could be done, an' not hurt the ship, nuther. The men was
all in favor of it, fur none of 'em had forgot it was Christmas day.
But Tom Simmons he was ag'in' it strong, fur he was thinkin' he'd git
some of the money if we got the Mary Auguster into port. He was a
selfish-minded man, was Tom, but it was his nater, an' I s'pose he
couldn't help it.

"Well, it wasn't long afore I began to feel pretty empty an' mean, an'
if I'd wanted any of the prog we got out the day afore, I couldn't have
found much, fur the men had eat it up nearly all in the night. An' so
I just made up my mind without any more foolin', an' me an' Andy Boyle
an' the bat'ry man, with some ca'tridges an' a coil of wire, got into
the little shore boat, an' pulled over to the Mary Aug