asleep?
It would be ever so much better to have some of it in the winter, or
else for us to be so that we did not want any sleep for months in
summer, and did not want to be awake for months in the winter, when it's
dark."

"I say, Marsham!" cried the doctor, laughing, "come and listen. Here's
our philosopher going to set nature right and improve the whole world."

"Oh, I say, Mr Handscombe, don't," whispered Steve, flushing.

"What does he propose doing?" said the captain as he joined them.

"He wants to keep awake all the summer and sleep all the winter; he says
it would be better."

"Well, he has only to take lessons from the bears and practise
hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very hungry when he
awoke."

"He's getting out of patience, too; wants something to do. Can't you
rig him up a line, and let him try for a shark?"

"No sharks up here," said Steve promptly.

"Plenty," said the captain, looking at Steve with a peculiar smile,
which made the lad wince, for it seemed to say to him, "Don't be so
conceited, my lad; you don't know everything yet."

"Greenland shark, I think it is called. The Finland people fish for it.
I say, Jakobsen, could we catch sharks anywhere hereabouts?"

"I don't know about here, sir," said the Norseman gravely. "There are
plenty near the Greenland shores."

"How do you catch them?"

"Oh, easily, sir, with a long line and winch to reel it up quickly. You
let down a big hook with plenty of bait on it, right to the bottom, on
some bank, about two hundred fathoms down."

"Yes," said Steve eagerly. "That's rather deep, though."

"Yes, sir; but that's where the sharks lie."

"Are they very big?"

"Yes, sir, all sizes--eight and ten and twelve or fourteen feet long."

"Well, what then?" said Steve impatiently.

"Oh, then, sir, you wait for a bite."

"Of course, I know that! You wait for a bite in all fishing. But do
you fish from a small boat?"

"Oh no, sir. You go, six or seven of you, in a decent-sized smack, and
fish till you've loaded her--if you're lucky."

"But what do you do with the sharks? People don't eat them."

"Make isinglass of their skins?" suggested the doctor.

"Oh no, sir," continued Jakobsen. "I've been out two or three times,
and very good trade it is, gentlemen. You sail out to the Greenland
banks, and if the weather's good you're all right, for the sharks bite
very freely, and as the line's very thin you can soon ree