Page:At the Fall of Port Arthur.djvu/52

34 artist who always gave the men the best his stock afforded.

"Well, be careful of what you cook and how you cook it after this," said Captain Ponsberry.

"Would yo' mind tellin' me, sah, who is kicking, sah?" asked Jeff, respectfully.

"Semmel says he was made sick by what he ate."

"Huh, dat scab!" grunted Jeff. "He ain't no 'count at all, he ain't!" And the cook turned away in disgust.

"It looks to me as if Semmel was trying to make trouble all around," said Tom Grandon, when he and the captain and Larry talked the matter over.

"I never liked that man from the first time I clapped eyes on him," came from Larry. "He's a sneak—and worse."

"I shall watch him pretty closely after this," said Captain Ponsberry. "One discontented fellow like him can upset the whole ship if he sets out to do it."

"They can't complain of the grub," went on the first mate. "It's as good as on any merchantman, and better than the law requires."

"I guess it was the deck-swabbing that gave him the stomach ache," said Larry, and this made the captain and Grandon smile.

The next day when the sailors sat down to their