Evening star., 1898-06-18
THE WARD ROOM CATERER

II there 10 any one feature Of life aboard
ship that ward room oflcer Of the navy
particularly dislikes, 1t Ia his election as
caterer OF the ward room mess. All OF the
ward room officers have to take their turns
at this job. When the catering Of an officer
proves especially satisfactory to his mess
mates he II often elected over and 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 ca
terer. This would be too obvious, and
would cause criticism. The ward room ca
terer does all of the buying for the mess
through the ward room steward, who is
an enlisted man. Some ward room officers
are eminently successful as caterers and
others make very bad fist of 1t. 1t is
principle among ward room officers to ridi-
cuie the mess caterer and pour contumely
Upon his efforts. no matter how successful
ne may be. and the caterer is always the
putt OF all hands aft at meal times. Every
thing 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 cnly guying
rim. AT the END of the month, the ex-
penses of the mess are divided I'D among
all OF the officers of the mess each paying
his portion.
Lieutenant Victor Blue, the nervy young
getting a good view of the Spanish feet
In Santiago harbor by making a daring de-
tour OF seventy-f1ve miles or SO on Cuban
soil, was attached 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 unanimously
elected almost as soon as he was attached
TO the Bennington. Lieutenant Blue is a
giant of a young man. and exceedingly
good-natured But he made a sad hash of
the caterers job. He got his accounts all
mixed up before he had served as caterer
Tor week, and he had to pay a lot of
seignorage out Of his own pocket. The
meals he placed before his messmates were
satisfactory enough, but the caterers job
were on Lieutenant Blue great deal. He
figured on how to get his congo. When a
Few caterer is elected, it is the custom of
the ward room officers to weigh themselves
every day, in spirit of fun, in order to
worry the caterer, and to make it appear.
by their solemnly averred loss Of weight,
that they are being half starved. Lieuten-
ant Blue went down to the engine room
one day, after he had been worried over
the caterers job for a week or so, and dug
out big drop-scales. He tinkered with it
for while. Then he rugged a bosun's
chair to it, carried it aft, and suggested to
the officers that when they wanted to
weigh themselves thereafter they use those
scales of his. The officers didn't suspect
anything, and after dinner the same day
several of them weighed themselves. They
had all lost pound since the day before
They said the scales were wrong and
Lieutenant 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 wonderingly. All of the officers
OF the Bennngtons ward room mess went
on losing flesh, according to Lieutenant
Blues scales, for ten days or so. Then
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 a smile of deep
content every time he looked at a weighing
apparatus.