The greatest fault to be found with these kitchen gentry, these black cooks of Antigua, is, that while from various meats and spices they are compounding ambrosial food for their masters, they forget the rules of equity, and, like the lordly lion of the forest, keep the largest share for themselves. This is done with impunity by all the class; they dread not even the “strong arm of the law,” nor exempt the lawyers themselves from this exaction, if report speaks true. When discovered in these petty thefts, they use the greatest art to make you believe it is a mistake, a slip of (not the tongue, but) the fingers, and, consequently, not their fault; or else, that “_somebody_” did the deed, and laid the blame at their door.
A gentleman proprietor of this island had a servant living with him who was famed for practising this particular species of depredation, quite an adept in the art, and who at the same time possessed a tongue well versed in the doctrine of excuses. Many and oft have been the occasions when this sable offender has appropriated to his own share the eatables which ought to have graced his master’s table, and yet escaped without reproof. But one day, (for so the Fates had willed it,) being pressed for time, “Lemon” was obliged to transfer to his _pocket_, instead of a place of more approved security, a fish he had adroitly managed to purloin, and hurry into the dining-room, (in his double capacity of cook and footman,) with the remainder properly dished up. “Truth,” says the old proverb, “will pop out its head;” and although the stubborn fish did not exactly do that, it made amends by popping out its _tail_, and proved to the master’s eye the undeniable fact of his servant’s deviation. Unconscious that his silent but no less true accuser had betrayed him, the faulty cook kept his stand, until, at length, his master, pointing at the same time to the purloined luxury, inquired, “Lemon, what is that you have in your pocket?” His blushes, if he knew how to blush, were effectually concealed by the blackness of his skin, while, with the counterfeit surprise of innocence, he replied to this question by asking another: “Pocket, massa? war pocket?” And then, turning his eye to that particular part of his garment, and perceiving in a moment that the presence of the obtruding fish could not be denied, with ready cunning, he continued, “You see dat, massa? you see dat, missis? you eber see how ‘de ebil’ (witchcraft) follow me! Ebil come quite in me pocket, come put fish dere, so make you aw tink me go tief it!” Oh, worthy Lemon! oh, noble son of Ham! hadst thou lived in the days when Jupiter and his train peopled bright Olympus, undoubtedly thou wouldst have been turned into a constellation as a reward for thy ingenuity!