FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 115 
the pumps to keep the ship afloat, then the sun is shot, 
and Nicholas makes his appearance for the second time 
and announces dinner. 
The dinners are all the same ; that is to say, Monday's 
dinners are all alike, and what we have to-day, D.V., we 
shall have this day six months hence. There is something 
almost grand in this, suggestive of the recurrence of the 
seasons. Jafck's forefather this day a hundred years ago 
had the same menu and made the same uncomplimentary 
remarks about the dishes, and a hundred years hence on 
this day Jack's children will growl over their salt horse 
and plumless duff, unless Wilson brings in his new scale 
of provisions by that time. Possibly they will growl even 
then. 
It is told that once upon a time there lived a skipper 
whose wife said to him that if she went to sea the 
poor men would never find fault with their food, so her 
husband took her with him on a voyage. Now this good 
woman attended to the cooking in the galley herself, and 
the scouse was thick with fresh vegetables, the bread was 
white and without weevils, the meat was good, and the 
duff was almost half plums ; but still the men growled. 
Then the skipper's wife thought of the hens that she had 
brought to lay eggs for her husband, and she took them 
and drew their necks with her own fair hands and plucked 
them and roasted them and sent them forward to the 
focsle on the cabin china. At last she thought the 
men will know how much we think of their comfort. 
At eight bells she stole forward to the fore-scuttle to 
listen to the praise of her skill, and, as she listened, 
