“Rouse the doctor?” he repeated.  “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.  ’Not quite, sir,’ says I.  ‘Mock-turtle soup?’ says the captain, and helps me.  I swallow a couple of spoonfuls, and turn as white as a sheet.  The captain cocks his eye at me.  ‘Go on deck, sir,’ says he; ‘get rid of the soup, and then come back to the cabin.’  I got rid of the soup, and came back to the cabin.  ’Cod’s head-and-shoulders,’ says the captain, and helps me.  ’I can’t