Others anthematised him for his slovenliness, casting hypercritical glances into their pots and pans, and scraping them with their knives.

Then he would be railed at for his miserable "duffs," and other shortcoming preparations.
Marking all this from the beginning, I, White-Jacket, was sorely troubled with the idea, that, in the course of time, my own turn would come round to undergo the same objurgations.

How to escape, I knew not.
However, when the dreaded period arrived, I received the keys of office (the keys of the mess-chest) with a resigned temper, and offered up a devout ejaculation for fortitude under the trial.

I resolved, please Heaven, to approve myself an unexceptionable caterer, and the most impartial of stewards.
The first day there was "_duff_" to make--a business which devolved upon the mess-cooks, though the boiling of it pertained to Old Coffee and his deputies.

I made up my mind to lay myself out on that _duff_; to centre all my energies upon it; to put the very soul of art into it, and achieve an unrivalled _duff_--a _duff_ that should put out of conceit all other _duffs_, and for ever make my administration memorable.
From the proper functionary the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "_slush_," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt.