about noon
I 'll trouble you for some fat and a little gravy . We 'll have some jollification when we get to sea ; but we must get into blue water first : then we shall have less to do . Talking of broiling steaks , when I was in Egypt , we used to broil our beef-steaks on the rocks -- no occasion for fire -- thermometer at 200 -- hot as h -- l ! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time , all hissing and frying at a time -- just about noon , of course , you know -- not a spark of fire ! Some of the soldiers , who had been brought up as glass-blowers , at Leith , swore they never saw such heat . I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff , and think of old England ! Ah , that 's the country , after all , where a man may think and say what he pleases !