“Some kind of paperwork muddle he needs to straighten out before the inspection team comes next month. He’s spent the day matching up purchase and inventory records. Which reminds me. I’ve got some papers to take over to the mess sergeant. Come with me, and we’ll see if Romeo can round us up some coffee.”

Supper preparation was in full swing, the mess hall crew all in their cooks’ whites, which they wore instead of denims. Steam curled above soup kettles, and tuna sandwiches were being turned out on an assembly line that Henry Ford himself would have approved of.

We found Romeo out back spoiling Beggar and Thief.

“Had to take me a break,” he said. “I’ve been going since dawn when I had to make the run into town for perishables.”

He glanced sideways at me, like he thought I might jack him up for slacking off.

I just shook my head. Getting Hakes to return the outside crew to forty-hour weeks was one thing. Getting him to stop piling double duty on everybody he could was another. Romeo hadn’t ought to be expected to pick up supplies and then spend a whole day cooking them, both.

“That a whole egg you just gave Thief?” I asked.

“It had a crack in it,” Romeo said.

Thief tapped a little hole in one end and commenced sucking the insides out. “I taught him that,” Romeo said proudly.

“I thought it was hounds that’re supposed to suck eggs,” I said. “Though I never saw one.”

“Me neither, and Beggar doesn’t have the knack.”

Beggar was sitting back on his haunches, watching the skunk with as much interest as us humans were.

Sam had on the expression I thought of as his Boston look, though I didn’t know beans about Boston. But it was a look like just when he’d thought he’d seen everything, here came something new under the sun.

“Well,” Sam said, “that explains part of the captain’s problem, anyway.”

“What’s that?” Romeo asked.

“The mess sergeant complained that we’re not ordering enough eggs, and I brought over the last purchase order to show him we’re buying the same supplies as always: one hundred twenty dozen eggs per week, along with a half ton of bread and a quarter ton of beef. But of course, nobody figured on Thief’s consumption.”

Romeo appeared puzzled for a moment, like he was trying to work something out. But then Thief finished the egg and waddled back a few steps to watch for what might come next.

“No more,” Romeo told him. “Sam,” he said, “honest, Thief hasn’t eaten . . . well, I’ve not exactly counted, but not enough eggs they’d be missed.”