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The fellow ran to do the work and the cook, in vast satisfaction at having so well acquitted himself, sat down with a goblet of sack and tippled and nodded, and kept an ill-tempered eye on the master’s boy and his own, as with shrewd fear of broken heads they scurried back and forth.

“It is most wonderful excellent sack,” quoth the cook, and with his sleeve he mopped his fiery bald head. “It was by a happy stroke I marked it for my own. Truly, I had rather be cook than master, for here I sit with mine eye upon the cabin stores, from which I can choose and eat at will, and the captain, nay, the Lord High Admiral of England, is himself none the wiser. Fish, sayest thou? Nay, fish is at best a poor man’s food. I will have none of it.” And thus he ran on foolishly, forgetting as he drank sack, that there was no one to hear him, not even his mate. ‘‘Truly, I am a wonderful excellent cook. I may in time become a captain. I may even become the governor of a plantation and take for a wife some handsome Spanish woman with a wonderful rich dowry. She must have an exceeding rich dowry if she will marry me, though. Yea, I am a wonderful excellent cook.’’ And the more he drank the more foolish he became.

After a while, he cocked his head upon one side; and quoth he, “I hear them calling and shouting! It seemeth they are singing huzza for me. I hear them coming down to do me honour. Truly, I am a most wonderful excellent cook and the fish hath pleased them well. Foolish ones that they are to eat it!”

The silly fellow sat with his head on one side and smiled when they burst in upon him. "Hast come for more fish?” he cried. ‘‘Yonder stands the kettle. Nay,