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The author reprints a poem by W. S. Gilbert, the first published of the famous Bab Ballads. It tells of a sailor who, stranded with nine shipmates, eats them all one by one, so that finally he is,
'At once a cook, and a captain bold,And the mate of the Nancy brig,And a bo-sun tight, and a midshipmite,And the crew of the captain's gig.'
Saul Rosenzweig connects the cannibalistic content of the poem with W. S. Gilbert's humor as a manic compensation for underlying depression.