appetites, so we agreed with "Stump" when he said, "I feel as if I could
put a whole bumboat load of stuff out of commission all by my lonely."
"Stump's" appetite was out of proportion to his size.

When the boatswain's mate gave his peculiar long, quavering pipe and the
order "spread mess gear for the watch below," at 7:20, we of the watch
on deck realized that there was still forty minutes to wait. Every man's
hunger seemed to increase tenfold, so that even the odor of boiling
"salt-horse" from the galley did not trouble us.

Finally the order came, "on deck all the starboard watch"; followed by
the boatswain's mess call for the watch on deck. The scramble to get
below and to work with knife, fork, and spoon resembled a fire panic at
a theatre. It is first come first served aboard ship, and the man who
lingers often gets left.

The gun deck of the "Yankee," like the gun deck of most war vessels, is
Jack's living room. Here he sleeps, in what he facetiously calls his
folding-bed, which is swung from the deck beams above; here he enjoys
the various amusements that an ordinary citizen would call work; here he
goes through his drills; here he fights, not his shipmates, but his
country's enemies, and here he eats.

The remark, "he spread his legs luxuriously under the mahogany," would
hardly apply to Jack's mode of dining. His table is a swinging affair
that is hung on the hammock hooks--a mere board a couple of feet wide
and twelve or fourteen feet long, having a ridge around the edge to keep
the plates from sliding off in a seaway. Jack's dining chairs are called
"mess benches," and consist of a long folding bench that with the table
can be stowed away in racks overhead when not in use. A mess chest for
each mess, an enamelled iron plate and cup, and a knife, fork, and spoon
for each man complete the "mess gear" outfit.

The ship's company is divided into messes, each man being assigned to a
certain mess at the same time his billet number or ship's number is
given to him. There are from fifteen to thirty men in a mess. Each has
its own "berth-deck cook," who prepares the food for the galley; each,
too, has a mess caterer, or striker, whose business it is to help the
mess cook and see that all goes well. The caterer is a volunteer from
the mess, and generally serves for a week, when another volunteer takes
his place. If the quantity or quality of the food is not up to
expectations, it would be better for the caterer t