It's a poor tale when the hands won't work.
Even with galleys on deck, the life of a sea-cook is not generally thowt an enviable position.

Is not a happy one--not a happy one, as the fellah says in the opera.

You must humour your cooks.

If you stuck 'em in the hold, you'd get no dinner at all--that's the long and the short of it." The languid lady turned away with a sickly, disappointed air.

"Then they ought to have a conscription, or something," she said, pouting her lips.
"The Government ought to take it in hand and manage it somehow.