Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889 / 2008-09-17 00:00:00
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
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.
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