“You look very ill, very ill indeed,” observed the boy. “What an extraordinary change! I should scarcely have known you. You must be in a very dangerous state, Roly Poly. You ought to be in your hammock. You ought to be making your will—you ought to be saying your prayers.”
“Oo, oo, oo!” blubbered out the fat cook, lengthening his face as he listened to the remarks of his companion. “You tink I die, Massa Loop?”
“I am much afraid you will be as dead as a herring before you can look about you,” replied Loop.
“Oo, oo, oo!” The other continued. “Doctor say I die: you say I die: spose I must die. Oo, oo, oo!——“
“We are all mortal,” observed the youth, with a grave countenance; “and all, sooner or later, must leave this sublunary world. Cooks cannot be spared any more than midshipmen.”
“Oo, oo, oo!” cried Roly Poly.
“Is there any thing I can do for you?” anxiously inquired the midshipman;—“any consolation I can afford, before your cold remains are consigned to the deep.”
“Oo, oo, oo!” continued the fat cook.
“You must have fortitude to bear the blow,” said Loop, with a countenance that would have done credit to a judge. “Let this be your consolation, that although your body will be devoured by the first shark that ventures in its way——”
“Oo, oo, oo, oo!” vehemently sobbed the sick man, interrupting the sentence before it was half finished.