found out
than from any refined sense of shame. He, however, when he came again
in the evening, treated us exactly as if we were still very weak, and
when Spellman persisted in talking of the odd position into which his
hands twisted themselves when he was in pain, he seemed to take it all
in, and agreed with him, that such was a very natural and common
occurrence. I had my doubts, however, of Macquoid's sincerity, and
having had some experience of his mode of treatment on a former
occasion, resolved to be very much better the next visit he paid us. I
said nothing to Spellman, whose spirits rose immediately.

"I told you so," he exclaimed, when Macquoid was gone. "I told you I
should humbug Johnny Sawbones."

"Now if we could but get the boatswain to come to us, and to go on with
his yarns, we should be all right and jolly," observed Grey.

I agreed with him, and soon afterwards Toby Bluff coming to see me,
which the faithful fellow did as often as he could during the day, I
sent him to invite Mr Johnson to pay us a visit, as he would have more
leisure then than at any other time of the day. Nothing loth, the
boatswain soon made his appearance.

"And so, young gentlemen, you want to hear more of my wonderful, not to
say veracious, narratives," he observed, while a pleasant smile
irradiated his features. "Well, I hold that the use of a man's legs is
to move about the world, the use of his eyes is to see all that is to be
seen, as he does move about, and the use of his tongue to describe all
that he has seen, and so I'll use mine to good purpose, and indulge you,
but, as I've said before, I say again, I will have no one doubt my word.
If there's any cavilling, I'll shut up as close as an oyster when he's
had his dinner, and, having made this preliminary observation, here
goes. Let me recollect, where had I got to?" Mr Johnson said this
while taking his usual seat on a bucket, between our hammocks, his huge
legs stretched out along the deck, and his big head sticking up, so that
his eagle eyes could glance round above them.

"I remember,--I was taking a walk to the North Pole. I did not think
that I could be many days' journey from it. But that did not matter.
The air was so bracing that I could take any amount of exercise without
fatigue, and was therefore able to walk all day, sitting down merely for
convenience sake when I was enjoying my dinner off the preserved bear.
I of course could not cut the flesh