"Suppose the doctor should be frozen?
He hadn't a ha'porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded
like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now? Yes, the
bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you," cried John Want, suiting
the action to the word, "and flavor the hot water if you can! When I
remember that I was once an apprentice at a pastry-cook's--when I think
of the gallons of turtle-soup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly
hot kitchen--and when I find myself mixing bones and hot water for
soup, and turning into ice as fast as I can; if I wasn't of a cheerful
disposition I should feel inclined to grumble. John Want! John Want!
whatever had you done with your natural senses when you made up your
mind to go to sea?"

A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bed-places in the
side of the hut. It was the voice of Francis Aldersley.

"Who's that croaking over the fire?"

"Croaking?" repeated John Want, with the air of a man who considered
himself the object of a gratuitous insult. "Croaking? You don't find
your own voice at all altered for the worse--do you, Mr. Frank? I don't
give _him_," John proceeded, speaking confidentially to himself, "more
than six hours to last. He's one of your grumblers."

"What are you doing there?" asked Frank.

"I'm making bone soup, sir, and wondering why I ever went to sea."

"Well, and why did you go to sea?"

"I'm not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural
perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride at getting over
sea-sickness; sometimes I think it was reading 'Robinson Crusoe,' and
books warning of me _not_ to go to sea."

Frank laughed. "You're an odd fellow. What do you mean by false pride
at getting over sea-sickness? Did you get over sea-sickness in some new
way?"

John Want's dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had
recalled to the cook's memory one of the noteworthy passages in the
cook's life.

"That's it, sir!" he said. "If ever a man cured sea-sickness in a
new way yet, I am that man--I got over it, Mr. Frank, by dint of hard
eating. I was a passenger on board a packet-boat, sir, when first I saw
blue water. A nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinner-time, and I began
to feel queer the moment the soup was put on the table. 'Sick?' says
the captain. 'Rather, sir,' says I. 'Will you try my cure?' says the
captain. 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'Is your heart in your mouth yet?'
says the captain.