John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary
smile.

"I don't think I shall have the honor of making much more bone
soup for you, sir. Do you think yourself you'll last long, sir? I
don't, saving your presence. I think about another week or ten
days will do for us all. Never mind! _I_ don't grumble."

He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound
them--under protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared,
entering from the inner hut.

"A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir."

"Well?"

"The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He
wants to see you immediately."

"I will go at once. Rouse the doctor."

Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut,
followed by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and
smiled more drearily than ever.

"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