word iv it aft to the Wolf. The Wolf is strong, and it's the
way of a wolf to hate strength, an' strength it is he'll see in
Johnson--no knucklin' under, and a 'Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir,' for
a curse or a blow. Oh, she's a-comin'! She's a-comin'! An' God knows
where I'll get another boat-puller! What does the fool up an' say, when
the old man calls him Yonson, but 'Me name is Johnson, sir,' an' then
spells it out, letter for letter. Ye should iv seen the old man's face!
I thought he'd let drive at him on the spot. He didn't, but he will, an'
he'll break that squarehead's heart, or it's little I know iv the ways iv
men on the ships iv the sea."

Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to Mister him
and to Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf
Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is an unprecedented thing,
I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the cook; but this is
certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or three times he put his head
into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good-naturedly, and once, this
afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted with him for
fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge was back in the
galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming
coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto.

"I always get along with the officers," he remarked to me in a
confidential tone. "I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreci-yted.
There was my last skipper--w'y I thought nothin' of droppin' down in the
cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass. 'Mugridge,' sez 'e to me,
'Mugridge,' sez 'e, 'you've missed yer vokytion.' 'An' 'ow's that?' sez
I. 'Yer should 'a been born a gentleman, an' never 'ad to work for yer
livin'.' God strike me dead, 'Ump, if that ayn't wot 'e sez, an' me
a-sittin' there in 'is own cabin, jolly-like an' comfortable, a-smokin'
'is cigars an' drinkin' 'is rum."

This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a voice I
hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile and his
monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I was all in a
tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and loathsome person I
have ever met. The filth of his cooking was indescribable; and, as he
cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I was compelled to select what I
ate with great circumspection, choosing from the least dirty of his
concoctions.