“Oh yes, sir, twice. Not for long, but quite long enough to know how to act most sensibly as to eating and drinking.”
“Does that make much difference?” said Steve, as they walked sharply along the deck, and then broke into the double, step for step.
“All the difference, sir. Eat and drink well up here in these cold places, and you are able to stand the cold.”
“What do you eat, then?”
“Meat with plenty of fat, sir, and warmth-producing stuff like sugar. The Eskimo people almost live upon fat—blubber and oil.”
“Ugh!” ejaculated Steve; “how horrible! But look here, Johannes, what do you people drink up here to help—plenty of grog?”
“No, sir, not a drop,” said the Norseman sharply. “That does more harm than good. Makes a man feverishly hot for a few minutes, then leaves him colder than he was before.”
“What do you drink, then?” said Steve, staring at the man’s earnestness.
“Tea, sir; plenty of good, hot tea. It rests and refreshes a man directly, and he can do more work on hot tea than upon anything else that has been tried.”
“Well, I don’t mind tea,” said Steve rather jerkily; for it was beginning to be hard work to keep on talking while trotting round and round the deck. But Johannes, though measuring his big strides to make them fit with the boy’s, kept up the trot till Steve was so thoroughly out of breath that at the end of a quarter of an hour he stopped short and then dropped upon a coil of rope.