'It must be wild and dreary on the sea of ice and snow, and so cold I should freeze to death.'
'Bless yer little 'eart, I tells ye it's just skir-r-rumptious up near wot they calls the Pole, though I never did see un—nary a pole.'
As he spoke Ben hung himself up, as it were, on a belaying-pin against the bulwark, and Lotty stood looking at him. But he didn't look at her, only beyond her or over her, for if he had looked right into her face or eyes I'm certain the boy couldn't have spoken a sensible sentence.
'Just skir-r-rumptious! An' those hartist chaps wot 'drors pictures o' hicebergs in books knows nuffin' whatsomediver about it; no more nor they does about their Bibles. Goin' out north that way it's cold enough at fust, like to freeze yer face like heverythink, an' if yer didn't watch the barber 'e'd precious soon cut yer nose right clean hoff.'
'Do you carry a barber?'
‘’E comes an' carries 'isself—comes on board w'en the fermometer's worked away down zero-ways. 'E ain't no man this barber, honly a white mist wot rises off a calm an' frosty sea like the steam from a pot w'en she's beginnin' to boil; an', oh, 'e's a sneezer! 'E 'ardens the beef in the riggin', an' the sheets an' the stays as well, an' 'e 'eats the brass-work an' steel till they burns worse nor 'ot pokers if ye're grampus enough to touch 'em. An' 'e covers the decks an' the skylights an' the boats an' bulwarks, an' man an' beast as well, till the dog's like a Polar bear, an' all 'ands looks like Methuselahs, with white beards an' 'air an' heyelashes. That's wot the barber does, does 'e. But mebbe the sun shines after this. Then heverybody grows young again hall of a suddint, an' the barber flies north to the Pole.'
'Is the ice all like castles and steeples and pinnacled mountains?'
'Honly in pictur'-books, missie.'
'Plenty of skating, I suppose?'
'Lo'd love ye, no. 'Cause as 'ow the big flat or round-topped bergs is hall covered feet-deep in snow.'