The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He
stopped and looked up at the man in the hammock.

"I must rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That
fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits.
The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world--and yet,
according to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole
ship's company. John Want! John Want! Rouse up, there!"

A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red
night-cap. A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the
hammock. A voice, worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of
the Arctic climate, in these words:

"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?"