First you have to assume that two men who've been around, a ship's cook and the captain, don't know a rooster from a hen--and then you're left with a rooster who doesn't know when to keep quiet (until he's almost in the soup). The pictures have a certain charm that might be Gallic--notwithstanding Mrs. Brody on the island of St. Sony--but the story's only charm, its insouciance, translates as lackadaisicalness.