"Lord! Lord! here's all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please,
sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have
snored, I've frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that
extent that he ices his own bed, it can't last much longer. Never mind!
_I_ don't grumble."

Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want lowered
himself to the floor--grumbling all the way--by a rope attached to the
rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer
and his saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fire-place, and held his
chin as close as he possibly could over the fire. Crayford looked after
him.

"Halloo! what are you doing there?"

"Thawing my beard, sir."

"Come here directly, and set to work on these bones."

John Want remained immovably attached to the fire-place, holding
something else over the fire. Crayford began to lose his temper.

"What the devil are you about now?"

"Thawing my watch, sir. It's been under my pillow all night, and the
cold has stopped it. Cheerful, wholesome, bracing sort of climate to
live in; isn't it, sir? Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

"No, we all know that. Look here! Are these bones pounded small enough?"

John Want suddenly approached the lieutenant, and looked at him with an
appearance of the deepest interest.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he said; "how very hollow your voice sounds
this morning!"

"Never mind my voice. The bones! the bones!"

"Yes, sir--the bones. They'll take a trifle more pounding. I'll do my
best with them, sir, for your sake."

"What do you mean?"

John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary smile.

"I don't think I shall have the honor of making much more bone soup for
you, sir. Do you think yourself you'll last long, sir? I don't, saving
your presence. I think about another week or ten days will do for us
all. Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound them--under
protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared, entering from the inner
hut.

"A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir."

"Well?"

"The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants
to see you immediately."

"I will go at once. Rouse the doctor."

Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed
by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily
than ever.

"Rouse the doctor?" he repeated.