The Opelousas courier., 1898-08-27
THE WARD ROOM CATERER
One Feature of Life ia the Navy That Is Dis
tasteful.

W
If there is any one feature OF life
aboard ship that a ward room o11lcer
of the navy particularly dislikes, 1t IS
his election as caterer OF the Ward
room mess. All of the ward room OF
ficers HAYS to take their turn at this
job. When the catering OF an oflcer
proves especially satisfactory to MS
messmates, he is often elected over n
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 pc
displaced as caterer. h would pe
too obvious, and would cause criticism.
The ward room caterer does all OF the
buving 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
a very bad fist of it. 1t is a prlnclpie
among ward room officers to rldlcule
the mess caterer and pour contumely
upon his efforts, no matter now sue
cessful he may be, and the caterer is
always the butt of all hands aft at
meal times. Everything that he sets
before his messmates is pronounced
yillainous, and he is made as unhappy
as possible, even though he knows the
officers of the mess are only guylnS
him. At the end of the month, the
of the mess are divided UP
mons all of the officers of the mess,
each paying his portion.
Lieutenant Victor Blue, the nervy
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-hVe
miles or so on Cuban soil, was attach
ed 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 at
tached to the Bennington. Lieutenant
Blue is a giant of a young man, and
exceedingly good natured. But ne
made a sad hash of the caterers job.
He got his accounts all mixed up be-
fore he had served as a caterer for a
week, and he had to pay a lot OF se1g-
norage out of his own pocket. The
meals he placed before his messmates
were satisfactory enough, but the cat
erer's job wore on Lieutenant Blue a
great deal. He figured on how to get
his congo. When a new caterer is
elected it is the custom of the ward
officers to weigh themselves every day,
in a spirit of fun, in order to weigh 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 Wor-
ried over the caterers job for a week
or so, and dug out a big dr~op-scales.
He tinkered with it for a while. Then
he rugged a bo'sun'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 a pound since the day De
fore. 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 B~ennington's
1v,rd room went on losing flesh. &C
cording 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 a
smile of deep content every time he
looked at a weighing apparatus.