In a moment all hands, including Jimmy, were tasting it, and all declared it tasted funny. As a matter of fact it did taste very funny if we accepted apple jack as a standard.
As the last smear of jam was cleaned from the jar the hypercritical Jimmy had the nerve to remark, "That was the rottenest marmerlade I ever tasted."
However, after that no questions were raised when I brought a donation forward, though to tell the truth these treats were scarce, as the mate's private stock ran out long before we got to Honolulu.
Captain Nichols was a good deal of a mystery to us forward. He seldom came on deck except for a few moments of a fine morning, when he would bob up, "take a sight" and stump deliberately down the companion to the chronometer, counting the seconds out loud on his way. At noon he "took the sun" alone in solitary scientific grandeur; only once do I remember seeing the mate take an observation. One noon, I was at the wheel at the time, our first officer came aft shortly before eight bells, carrying an ancient "hog yoke." His sleeves were rolled up, and a greasy shine on the arc of his instrument told of efforts at polishing. Somehow he could not get the sun to behave, for the curious relic seemed sadly in need of adjustment. He retired in disgust when the captain "made eight bells," and stumped forward without answering, when the skipper asked him what he had for altitude.
Tipping me the shadow of a wink, the captain went below to work up the position.
The captain on the other hand was quite regular in his methods of navigation. He watched the course closely, having a particularly fine tell-tale compass swung beneath the skylight in his private cabin, as every one of us had evidence by the uncanny way in which he would pop up out of the companion at the most unheard of hours of the night and walk quickly to the binnacle, and seldom except when the helmsman was off his course.
I met the captain a number of years afterward in Philadelphia. He was then in command of a fine steamer and I was second mate of another vessel of the same line. In the course of a pleasant visit talking over old times on the _Fuller_, I asked him how he managed to keep such close watch on the navigation of his ship without any particular assistance from his officers.