Arizona republican., 1898-06-25
THE WARD ROOM CATERER.
Nervy Blue Knew Thing or Two
 About Catering.

If there is any one feature of life aboard ship that a ward room officer of the navy particularly dislikes, it is his election as caterer of the ward
 room mess. All of the ward room of 1 ficers have to take their turns at this job. When the catering of an officer proves especially satisfactory to his
 messmates, he is often elected over and l over again, to his deep disgust. His frequent reelection, however, does not serve to make him remiss in his duty to the mess, in order that he may be displaced as caterer. This would be too obvious, and would cause criti- ciSm. The ward room caterer does all of the buying for the mess through the ward room steward, who is an enlist ed man. Some ward room officers are eminently successful as caterers, and
 others make a very bad fist of it. It is
 a principle among ward room officers to ridicule the mess caterer and pour
 contumely upon his efforts, no mat
 ter how successful he may be, and the
 caterer is always the butt end of all
 hands aft at meal times. Everything
 that he sets before his messmates is pronounced villainous, and he is made as unhappy as possible, even though
 he knows the officers of the mess are only guying him. At the end of the month the expenses of the mess are divided up among the officers of the mess, each paying his portion
 Lieutenant Victor Blue, the merry young officer who recently performed the feat of getting a good view of the Spanish fleet in Santiago harbor by making a daring detour of seventy five miles or so on Cuban soil, was at tached to the Bennington, which was lying in Honolulu harbor, about three years ago. He was then an ensign, and he had not up to that time been a ward room caterer. So he was unani- mously elected almost as soon as he was attached to the Bennington. Lieu tenant Blue is giant of a young man and exceedingly good natured. But he made sad hash of the caterers job. | He got his accounts all mixed up be- fore he had served as caterer for a week, and he had to pay lot of Selgn- l Orage out of his own pocket. The 1 meals he placed before his messmates were satisfactory enough, but the ca terer's job wore on Lieutenant Blue a great deal. He figured on how to get his cOnge. When a new caterer is | elected, it is the custom of the ward room officers to weigh themselves every | day, in spirit of fun, in order 10 worry the caterer, and to make it ap | pear, by their solemnly aTcrred loss of weight, that they are being half starv- ed. Lieutenant Blue went down to the l engine room one day, after he had 1 been worried over the caterers job for 1 a week or so, and dug out a big drop | scales. He tinkered with it for a | while. Then he rigged bo'sun's | chair to it, carried it aft, and suggested l to the officers that when they wanted to weigh themselves thereafter they l use those scales of his. The officers l didn't suspect anything. and after din ner the same day several of them | weighed themselves. They had all lost pound since the day before. They said the scales were wrong, and Lieu tenant Blue admitted that perhaps they were. They all weighed again the next day. Each of them had lost another pound, and they began to feel of their wristbands wonderingiy. All of the officers of the BenningtOn's ward room mess went on losing flesh, according to Lieutenant Blues scales, for ten days or so. Then a meeting of the ward room officers was called, and Lieutenant Blue was dropped as caterer, as being incompetent" and
 'nO-accOunt anyhow" Lieutenant Blue didn't have to serve as caterer for the rest of that cruise, and he wore smile of deep content every time he looked at weighing apparatus
 Star.