{"id":"01KG8AKVTXP0NDF2A8B5SNXVSM","cid":"bafkreihvmqm4yjlsg742v4aawfcnop2umiyl2wd5z3eygykeheppifgdny","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3227,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":3166,"text":"CHAPTER XVII.\r\nTHE COOK AND STEWARD\r\n\r\n\r\nIt was on a Sunday we made the Banks of Newfoundland; a drizzling,\r\nfoggy, clammy Sunday. You could hardly see the water, owing to the mist\r\nand vapor upon it; and every thing was so flat and calm, I almost\r\nthought we must have somehow got back to New York, and were lying at\r\nthe foot of Wall-street again in a rainy twilight. The decks were\r\ndripping with wet, so that in the dense fog, it seemed as if we were\r\nstanding on the roof of a house in a shower.\r\n\r\nIt was a most miserable Sunday; and several of the sailors had twinges\r\nof the rheumatism, and pulled on their monkey-jackets. As for Jackson,\r\nhe was all the time rubbing his back and snarling like a dog.\r\n\r\nI tried to recall all my pleasant, sunny Sundays ashore; and tried to\r\nimagine what they were doing at home; and whether our old family\r\nfriend, Mr. Bridenstoke, would drop in, with his silver-mounted\r\ntasseled cane, between churches, as he used to; and whether he would\r\ninquire about myself.\r\n\r\nBut it would not do. I could hardly realize that it was Sunday at all.\r\nEvery thing went on pretty much the same as before. There was no church\r\nto go to; no place to take a walk in; no friend to call upon. I began\r\nto think it must be a sort of second Saturday; a foggy Saturday, when\r\nschool-boys stay at home reading Robinson Crusoe.\r\n\r\nThe only man who seemed to be taking his ease that day, was our black\r\ncook; who according to the invariable custom at sea, always went by the\r\nname of _the doctor._\r\n\r\nAnd _doctors,_ cooks certainly are, the very best medicos in the world;\r\nfor what pestilent pills and potions of the Faculty are half so\r\nserviceable to man, and health-and-strength-giving, as roasted lamb and\r\ngreen peas, say, in spring; and roast beef and cranberry sauce in\r\nwinter? Will a dose of calomel and jalap do you as much good? Will a\r\nbolus build up a fainting man? Is there any satisfaction in dining off\r\na powder? But these doctors of the frying-pan sometimes loll men off by\r\na surfeit; or give them the headache, at least. Well, what then? No\r\nmatter. For if with their most goodly and ten times jolly medicines,\r\nthey now and then fill our nights with tribulations, and abridge our\r\ndays, what of the social homicides perpetrated by the Faculty? And when\r\nyou die by a pill-doctor’s hands, it is never with a sweet relish in\r\nyour mouth, as though you died by a frying-pan-doctor; but your last\r\nbreath villainously savors of ipecac and rhubarb. Then, what charges\r\nthey make for the abominable lunches they serve out so stingily! One of\r\ntheir bills for boluses would keep you in good dinners a twelve-month.\r\n\r\nNow, our doctor was a serious old fellow, much given to metaphysics,\r\nand used to talk about original sin. All that Sunday morning, he sat\r\nover his boiling pots, reading out of a book which was very much soiled\r\nand covered with grease spots: for he kept it stuck into a little\r\nleather strap, nailed to the keg where he kept the fat skimmed off the\r\nwater in which the salt beef was cooked. I could hardly believe my eyes\r\nwhen I found this book was the Bible.\r\n\r\nI loved to peep in upon him, when he was thus absorbed; for his smoky\r\nstudio or study was a strange-looking place enough; not more than five\r\nfeet square, and about as many high; a mere box to hold the stove, the\r\npipe of which stuck out of the roof.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ1D7GTGSF30NZ8F2XDX","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKVTXAG2ZCVC3RTS0HT8Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.269Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}