'Why there, things with turned-up tails and what you'd p'r'aps take for yellow bills when first you saw them. I should like their fur for Aunt Angel. Now we are going to start to find the North-west Passage. Beyond that place where the Polar bears are no one has ever been, and no one knows what is there.'
'Oh yes, please, Master Godfrey, I do,' exclaimed Nancy, ready as usual with information; 'the pig-sty.'
'Nobody knows that comes with me on the Victory', persisted Godfrey firmly, 'or if they do they've got to think they don't know as soon as possible. Now, say good-bye to the crew and come along.'
Nancy did not find it so easy as Godfrey seemed to do to imagine the empty decks of the little Victory fully manned, so her good-byes did not take long. But when she found that her captain's intention was to cross the pond on the ice, she hung back.
'It won't bear, Master Godfrey; Pete said it wasn't going to bear to-day.'
'What's bear?' asked Godfrey, with a foot on the ice.
'You can't walk on it, it'll break,' urged Nancy.
'What'll happen if it does?' asked Godfrey, with interest. That dark smooth surface, the first ice he had ever trodden on, had a strange attraction for him.
'You'll be drowned,' said Nancy solemnly; 'Pete knew a man whose brother was drowned through the ice. He'd had a drop too much beer and he got off the path.'
'There isn't any path here and I don't drink beer,' said Godfrey loftily. 'Are you coming?'